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Lia C H Fernald - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Microcredit participation and women s health results from a cross sectional study in peru
International Journal for Equity in Health, 2015Co-Authors: Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Social and economic conditions are powerful determinants of women’s health status. Microcredit, which involves the provision of small loans to low-income women in the hopes of improving their living conditions, is an increasingly popular intervention to improve women’s socioeconomic status. Studies examining the health effects of Microcredit programs have had mixed results. We conduct a cross-sectional study among female clients of a non-profit Microcredit program in Peru (N = 1,593). The predictor variable is length of Microcredit participation. We conduct bivariate and multivariate linear regressions to examine the associations between length of Microcredit participation and a variety of measures of women’s health. We control for participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. We find that longer participation is associated with decreased depressive symptoms, increased social support, and increased perceived control, but these differences are attenuated with the inclusion of covariates. We find no association between length of participation and contraception use, cancer screening, or self-reported days sick. These results demonstrate a positive association between length of Microcredit participation and measures of women’s psychological health, but not physical health. These findings contribute to the discussion on the potential of Microcredit programs to address the socioeconomic determinants of health, and suggest that addressing socioeconomic status may be a key way to improve women’s health worldwide.
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Microcredit participation and child health results from a cross sectional study in peru
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2014Co-Authors: H Moseson, Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Background Childhood malnutrition is a major consequence of poverty worldwide. Microcredit programmes—which offer small loans, financial literacy and social support to low-income individuals—are increasingly promoted as a way to improve the health of clients and their families. This study evaluates the hypothesis that longer participation in a Microcredit programme is associated with improvements in the health of children of Microcredit clients. Methods Cross-sectional data were collected in February 2007 from 511 clients of a Microcredit organisation in Peru and 596 of their children under 5 years of age. The primary predictor variable was length of participation in the Microcredit programme. Outcome variables included height, weight, anaemia, household food security and parent-reported indicators of child health. Multivariate linear and logistic regressions assessed the association between the number of loan cycles and child health outcomes. Pathways through which Microcredit may have influenced health outcomes were also explored via mediation analyses. Results Longer participation in Microcredit was associated with greater household food security and reduced likelihood of childhood anaemia. No significant associations were observed between Microcredit participation and incidence of childhood illnesses or anthropometric indicators. Increased consumption of red meat may mediate the association between the number of loan cycles and food security, but not the association with anaemia. Conclusions The effects of Microcredit on the health of clients’ children are understudied. Exploratory findings from this analysis suggest that Microcredit may positively influence child health, and that diet may play a causal role.
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Microcredit participation and nutrition outcomes among women in peru
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2012Co-Authors: Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Background Microcredit services—the awarding of small loans to individuals who are too poor to take advantage of traditional financial services—are an increasingly popular scheme for poverty alleviation. Several studies have examined the ability of Microcredit programmes to influence the financial standing of borrowers, but only a few studies have examined whether the added household income improves health and nutritional outcomes among household members. This study examined the hypothesis that longer participation in Microcredit services would be associated with better nutritional status in women. Methods Cross-sectional data were obtained in February 2007 from 1593 female clients of a Microcredit organisation in Peru. The primary predictor variable was length of time as a Microcredit client measured in number of completed loan cycles (range 0 to 5.5 years, average loan size US$350). The outcome variables were age-adjusted body mass index (BMI), haemoglobin levels (g/dl) and food insecurity measured using the US household food security survey module. Extensive data on demographic and socioeconomic status were also collected. Results Longer Microcredit participation was associated with higher BMI (β=0.05, p=0.06), higher haemoglobin levels (β=0.07, p Conclusion This study supports the notion that Microcredit participation has positive effects on the nutritional status of female clients. Further research should explore more definitive causal pathways through which these effects may occur and should examine the effects on other household members.
Asadul Islam - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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child labor and schooling responses to access to Microcredit in rural bangladesh
Economic Inquiry, 2013Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Chongwoo ChoeAbstract:Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this paper, we develop a model examining the relation between Microcredit and child labour. We then empirically examine the impact of access to Microcredit on children’s education and child labour using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. We address the selection bias using the instrumental variable method where the instrument relies on an exogenous variation in treatment intensity among households in different villages. The results show that household participation in a Microcredit program may increase child labour and reduce school enrolment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias.
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child labor and schooling responses to access to Microcredit in rural bangladesh
Economic Inquiry, 2013Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Chongwoo ChoeAbstract:Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this article, we examine the impact of access to Microcredit on children's education and child labor using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. The results show that household participation in a Microcredit program may increase child labor and reduce school enrollment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias.
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health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households does Microcredit have a role to play
Journal of Development Economics, 2012Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Pushkar MaitraAbstract:Abstract This paper estimates, using a large panel data set from rural Bangladesh, the effects of health shocks on household consumption and how access to Microcredit affects households’ response to such shocks. Households appear to be fairly well insured against health shocks. Our results suggest that households sell livestock in response to health shocks and short term insurance is therefore attained at a significant long term cost. However Microcredit has a significant mitigating effect. Households that have access to Microcredit do not need to sell livestock in order to insure consumption. Microcredit organizations and Microcredit therefore have an insurance role to play, an aspect that has not been analyzed previously.
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medium and long term participation in Microcredit an evaluation using a new panel dataset from bangladesh
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2011Co-Authors: Asadul IslamAbstract:The objective of this paper is to estimate the impacts of medium- and long-term participation in Microcredit programs. It utilises a new and large panel dataset collected from treatment and control households from 1997 to 2005. The data enables us to identify continuing participants in the program as well as newcomers and leavers. We employ different estimation strategies including triple-difference and propensity score matching methods to control for selection bias. The impact estimates indicate that the benefits from Microcredit vary more than proportionately with the duration of participation in a program. Larger benefits are realized from longer-term participation, and that the benefits continue to accrue beyond departure from the program. The findings indicate the need to observe longer periods of participation to provide a reliable basis for assessing the effectiveness of Microcredit lending.
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health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households does Microcredit have a role to play
Research Papers in Economics, 2008Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Pushkar MaitraAbstract:This paper estimates, using a large panel data set from rural Bangladesh, the effects of health shocks on household consumption and how access to Microcredit affects households' response to such shocks. Our results suggest that even though in general consumption remains stable in many cases when households are exposed to health shocks, households that have access to Microcredit appear to cope (slightly) better. The most important instrument used by households appear be sales of productive assets (livestock) and there is a significant mitigating effect of Microcredit: households that have access to Microcredit do not need to sell livestock to the extent households that do not have access to Microcredit need to, in order to insure consumption against health shocks. The results suggest that Microcredit organizations and Microcredit per se have an insurance role to play, an aspect that has not been analyzed previously.
Jonathan Morduch - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Is Micro too Small? Microcredit vs. SME Finance
World Development, 2013Co-Authors: Jonathan Bauchet, Jonathan MorduchAbstract:Microcredit and small and medium enterprise (SME) finance are often pitched as alternative strategies to create employment opportunities in low-income communities. So far, though, little is known about how employment patterns compare. We integrate evidence from three surveys to show that, compared to Bangladeshi Microcredit customers, typical SME employees in Bangladesh have more education and professional skills, and live in households that are notably less poor. SME jobs also require long work weeks, clashing with family responsibilities. The evidence from Bangladesh rejects the idea that SME finance more efficiently creates jobs for the population currently served by Microcredit.
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is micro too small Microcredit vs sme finance
Social Science Research Network, 2011Co-Authors: Jonathan Bauchet, Jonathan MorduchAbstract:Microcredit and small and medium enterprise (SME) finance are often pitched as alternative strategies to create employment opportunities in low‐income communities. So far, though, little is known about how employment patterns compare. We integrate evidence from three surveys in Bangladesh to show that, compared to Microcredit customers, typical SME employees in Bangladesh are far more likely to be men, have more education and professional skills, and live in households that are notably less poor. SME jobs also require long work weeks, clashing with family responsibilities. The evidence from Bangladesh rejects the idea that SME finance more efficiently creates jobs for the population served by Microcredit.
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behavioral foundations of Microcredit experimental and survey evidence from rural india
Social Science Research Network, 2010Co-Authors: Julie Chytilova, Michal Bauer, Jonathan MorduchAbstract:Microcredit is an innovative financial tool designed to reduce poverty and fix credit market imperfections. We use experimental measures of time discounting and risk aversion for villagers in south India to highlight behavioral features of Microcredit. Conditional on borrowing from any source, women with present-biased preferences are more likely than others to borrow through Microcredit institutions. Microcredit contracts require loan repayments in regular, fixed installments and they harness peer pressure to encourage discipline. These innovations mirror mechanisms highlighted in behavioral approaches to saving, suggesting that Microcredit's popularity stems partly from modes of encouragement and self-discipline absent in typical lending mechanisms.
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the impact of Microcredit on the poor in bangladesh revisiting the evidence
Research Papers in Economics, 2009Co-Authors: David Roodman, Jonathan MorduchAbstract:The most-noted studies on the impact of Microcredit on households are based on a survey fielded in Bangladesh in the 1990s. Contradictions among them have produced lasting controversy and confusion. Pitt and Khandker (PK, 1998) apply a quasi-experimental design to 1991–92 data; they conclude that Microcredit raises household consumption, especially when lent to women. Khandker (2005) applies panel methods using a 1999 resurvey; he concurs and extrapolates to conclude that Microcredit helps the extremely poor even more than the moderately poor. But using simpler estimators than PK, Morduch (1999) finds no impact on the level of consumption in the 1991–92 data, even as he questions PK’s identifying assumptions. He does find evidence that Microcredit reduces consumption volatility. Partly because of the sophistication of PK’s Maximum Likelihood estimator, the conflicting results were never directly confronted and reconciled. We end the impasse. A replication exercise shows that all these studies’ evidence for impact is weak. As for PK’s headline results, we obtain opposite signs. But we do not conclude that lending to women does harm. Rather, all three studies appear to fail in expunging endogeneity. We conclude that for non-experimental methods to retain a place in the program evaluator’s portfolio, the quality of the claimed natural experiments must be high and demonstrated.
Rita Hamad - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Microcredit participation and women s health results from a cross sectional study in peru
International Journal for Equity in Health, 2015Co-Authors: Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Social and economic conditions are powerful determinants of women’s health status. Microcredit, which involves the provision of small loans to low-income women in the hopes of improving their living conditions, is an increasingly popular intervention to improve women’s socioeconomic status. Studies examining the health effects of Microcredit programs have had mixed results. We conduct a cross-sectional study among female clients of a non-profit Microcredit program in Peru (N = 1,593). The predictor variable is length of Microcredit participation. We conduct bivariate and multivariate linear regressions to examine the associations between length of Microcredit participation and a variety of measures of women’s health. We control for participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. We find that longer participation is associated with decreased depressive symptoms, increased social support, and increased perceived control, but these differences are attenuated with the inclusion of covariates. We find no association between length of participation and contraception use, cancer screening, or self-reported days sick. These results demonstrate a positive association between length of Microcredit participation and measures of women’s psychological health, but not physical health. These findings contribute to the discussion on the potential of Microcredit programs to address the socioeconomic determinants of health, and suggest that addressing socioeconomic status may be a key way to improve women’s health worldwide.
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Microcredit participation and child health results from a cross sectional study in peru
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2014Co-Authors: H Moseson, Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Background Childhood malnutrition is a major consequence of poverty worldwide. Microcredit programmes—which offer small loans, financial literacy and social support to low-income individuals—are increasingly promoted as a way to improve the health of clients and their families. This study evaluates the hypothesis that longer participation in a Microcredit programme is associated with improvements in the health of children of Microcredit clients. Methods Cross-sectional data were collected in February 2007 from 511 clients of a Microcredit organisation in Peru and 596 of their children under 5 years of age. The primary predictor variable was length of participation in the Microcredit programme. Outcome variables included height, weight, anaemia, household food security and parent-reported indicators of child health. Multivariate linear and logistic regressions assessed the association between the number of loan cycles and child health outcomes. Pathways through which Microcredit may have influenced health outcomes were also explored via mediation analyses. Results Longer participation in Microcredit was associated with greater household food security and reduced likelihood of childhood anaemia. No significant associations were observed between Microcredit participation and incidence of childhood illnesses or anthropometric indicators. Increased consumption of red meat may mediate the association between the number of loan cycles and food security, but not the association with anaemia. Conclusions The effects of Microcredit on the health of clients’ children are understudied. Exploratory findings from this analysis suggest that Microcredit may positively influence child health, and that diet may play a causal role.
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Microcredit participation and nutrition outcomes among women in peru
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2012Co-Authors: Rita Hamad, Lia C H FernaldAbstract:Background Microcredit services—the awarding of small loans to individuals who are too poor to take advantage of traditional financial services—are an increasingly popular scheme for poverty alleviation. Several studies have examined the ability of Microcredit programmes to influence the financial standing of borrowers, but only a few studies have examined whether the added household income improves health and nutritional outcomes among household members. This study examined the hypothesis that longer participation in Microcredit services would be associated with better nutritional status in women. Methods Cross-sectional data were obtained in February 2007 from 1593 female clients of a Microcredit organisation in Peru. The primary predictor variable was length of time as a Microcredit client measured in number of completed loan cycles (range 0 to 5.5 years, average loan size US$350). The outcome variables were age-adjusted body mass index (BMI), haemoglobin levels (g/dl) and food insecurity measured using the US household food security survey module. Extensive data on demographic and socioeconomic status were also collected. Results Longer Microcredit participation was associated with higher BMI (β=0.05, p=0.06), higher haemoglobin levels (β=0.07, p Conclusion This study supports the notion that Microcredit participation has positive effects on the nutritional status of female clients. Further research should explore more definitive causal pathways through which these effects may occur and should examine the effects on other household members.
Chongwoo Choe - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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child labor and schooling responses to access to Microcredit in rural bangladesh
Economic Inquiry, 2013Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Chongwoo ChoeAbstract:Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this paper, we develop a model examining the relation between Microcredit and child labour. We then empirically examine the impact of access to Microcredit on children’s education and child labour using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. We address the selection bias using the instrumental variable method where the instrument relies on an exogenous variation in treatment intensity among households in different villages. The results show that household participation in a Microcredit program may increase child labour and reduce school enrolment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias.
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child labor and schooling responses to access to Microcredit in rural bangladesh
Economic Inquiry, 2013Co-Authors: Asadul Islam, Chongwoo ChoeAbstract:Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this article, we examine the impact of access to Microcredit on children's education and child labor using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. The results show that household participation in a Microcredit program may increase child labor and reduce school enrollment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias.