Abstract:
As noted by Muriu (2011), micro finance has attracted significant interest in recent years, both
from policy makers and in the academia, hence this study examined the determinants of
profitability of Ethiopian micro finance institutions using panel data of 12 micro finance
institutions operating in the country over the period of 2003-2012. Since the collected data is
secondary in nature, a quantitative approach to research was considered, besides the fixed effect
model was used. Under this study both internal and external factors were included, the internal
factors used in this study were, breadth of outreach, capital adequacy, portfolio quality,
efficiency, size and age where as the external factors were real GDP growth and inflation. ROA
was used as a proxy for profitability measure. Based on the regression result, among the micro
finance institution specific variables, breadth of outreach and age were found to be significant
variables with a positive coefficient against ROA whereas portfolio quality and operational
efficiency (lower cost) were significant variables with a negative coefficient. The remaining two
internal variables i.e. capital adequacy and size were found to be statistically insignificant. More
over the effect of macroeconomic variables included in the study i.e. GDP and inflation were
also statistically insignificant. Based on the findings detected, the study recommended measures
that the micro finance institutions may need to take in order to improve their breadth of
outreach, portfolio quality, operational efficiency and the role of the government in improving
the performance of micro finance institutions in the country.
