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Microfinance and Household Poverty Reduction: New Evidence from India

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  • Imai, Katsushi S.
  • Arun, Thankom
  • Annim, Samuel Kobina

Abstract

Summary The objective of the present study is to examine whether household access to microfinance reduces poverty. Using national household data from India, treatment effects model is employed to estimate the poverty-reducing effects of Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) loans for productive purposes, such as investment in agriculture or non-farm businesses on household poverty levels. These models take into account the endogenous binary treatment effects and sample selection bias associated with access to MFIs. Despite some limitations, such as those arising from potential unobservable important determinants of access to MFIs, significant positive effect of MFI productive loans on multidimensional welfare indicator has been confirmed. The significance of "treatment effects" coefficients has been verified by both Tobit and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) models. In addition, we found that loans for productive purposes were more important for poverty reduction in rural than in urban areas. However in urban areas, simple access to MFIs has larger average poverty-reducing effects than the access to loans from MFIs for productive purposes. This leads to exploring service delivery opportunities that provide an additional avenue to monitor the usage of loans to enhance the outreach.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal World Development.

Volume (Year): 38 (2010)
Issue (Month): 12 (December)
Pages: 1760-1774

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Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:1760-1774

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

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Keywords: microfinance; poverty; evaluation; India; Propensity Score Matching;

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References

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  1. John Weiss & Heather Montgomery, 2005. "Great Expectations: Microfinance and Poverty Reduction in Asia and Latin America," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 33(3-4), pages 391-416.
  2. Basu, Priya & Srivastava, Pradeep, 2005. "Scaling-up microfinance for India's rural poor," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3646, The World Bank.
  3. Khandker, Shahidur R., 2003. "Microfinance and poverty - evidence using panel data from Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2945, The World Bank.
  4. Heckman, James J, 1979. "Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 153-61, January.
  5. Menno Pradhan & Martin Ravallion, 2000. "Measuring Poverty Using Qualitative Perceptions Of Consumption Adequacy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 462-471, August.
  6. Katsushi Imai & Thankom Arun, 2008. "Does Microfinance Reduce Poverty in India?," The School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 0814, Economics, The University of Manchester.
  7. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2009. "Microfinance Meets the Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 167-92, Winter.
  8. P. Mosley, 2001. "Microfinance and Poverty in Bolivia," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 101-132.
  9. Adams, Alayne M. & Evans, Timothy G. & Mohammed, Rafi & Farnsworth, Jennifer, 1997. "Socioeconomic stratification by wealth ranking: Is it valid?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1165-1172, July.
  10. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1984. "Tobit models: A survey," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 3-61.
  11. Angus Deaton & Valerie Kozel, 2005. "Data and Dogma: The Great Indian Poverty Debate," World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 20(2), pages 177-199.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Ganesh Thapa & Samuel Kobina Annim, 2013. "Financial Crisis in Asia: Its Genesis, Severity and Impact on Poverty and Hunger," Discussion Paper Series DP2013-10, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
  2. Egziabher, Kidanemariam G. & Mathijs, Erik & Deckers, Jozef A. & Gebrehiwot, Kindeya & Bauer, Hans & Maertens, Miet, 2013. "The Economic Impact of a New Rural Extension Approach in Northern Ethiopia," Working Papers 146558, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
  3. repec:bwp:bwppap:17312 is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Angioloni, Simone & Kudabaev, Zarylbek & Ames, Glenn C.W. & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2013. "Micro-credit impact in Kyrgyzstan: A study case," 2013 Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 2013, Orlando, Florida 143074, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
  5. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Ganesh Thapa & Samuel Kobina Annim & Aditi Gupta, 2012. "Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions-A Macroeconomic and Institutional Perspective," Discussion Paper Series DP2012-04, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
  6. Asad K. Ghalib & Issam Malki & Katsushi S. Imai, 2011. "The Impact of Microfinance and its Role in Easing Poverty of Rural Households: Estimations from Pakistan," Discussion Paper Series DP2011-28, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
  7. Angioloni, Simone & Kudabaev, Zarylbek & Ames, Glenn C.W. & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2013. "Microcredit impact in Kyrgyzstan: A Case Study," 2013 Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 2013, Orlando, Florida 143838, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.

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