The external examiners were Professor Robert Lensink, Groningen and Wageningen Universities, and Martin Greeley, IDS, Sussex. Her supervisors were Richard Palmer-Jones and Arjan Verschoor (and Nitya Rao in the first year).

Richard Palmer-Jones said, "The thesis is based on re-analysis of survey data from iconic studies of microfinance – of SEWA in India and Grameen Bank, BRAC and BRDB in Bangladesh, applying Propensity Score Matching and, innovatively, sensitivity analysis, showing that it is not possible to reject the nul hypothesis that Microfinance has no effect on the well-being of the poor, and in particular that the effects observed are quite likely to have been caused by unobservable variables, such as entrepreneurial skills, that are correlated with both joining these organisations and benefiting from them. This empirical  work was complemented by original fieldwork with SEWA which provided invaluable ethnographic evidence for selection that is generally ignored by other studies."

"Maren, a recipient of a UEA PhD scholarship, submitted her PhD within three years of starting and has been a valuable and appreciated teaching assistant in DEV. She is currently a Senior Research Associate with DEVCo working on a DFID funded systematic review of the impact of microfinance and will be joining the International Food Policy Research Institute in February as a post-doctoral research fellow evaluating the policy impact of IFPRI’s work.

From everyone at the School of International Development, "Well done, Maren!".