IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/pmmacr/2016-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is microfinance truly useless for poverty reduction and women empowerment? A Bayesian spatial-propensity score matching evaluation in Bolivia

Author

Listed:
  • Rolando Gonzales
  • Joel Mendizabal
  • Patricia Aranda

Abstract

Banerjee et al. (2015) presented the results of six randomized evaluations that led them to conclude that micro-credit does not have a transformative impact on poverty and that little evidence of substantial effects on women's empowerment exist. We argue that even if no effects of micro-finance exist at the household/individual level, there still may be observable effects at the regional level due to the wider impacts of microfinance. A Bayesian Spatial-Propensity Score Matching estimator is proposed to measure these regional (spatial) treatment effects. The regional effects of microfinance in Bolivia were tested with this estimator, using census and household survey data. The results – conditional on the assumptions of the study– showed that microfinance was useful for poverty reduction and women’s-empowerment at the municipal level in Bolivia, thus suggesting that microfinance can be used to promote socio-economic development at the regional level.

Suggested Citation

  • Rolando Gonzales & Joel Mendizabal & Patricia Aranda, 2016. "Is microfinance truly useless for poverty reduction and women empowerment? A Bayesian spatial-propensity score matching evaluation in Bolivia," Working Papers PMMA 2016-06, PEP-PMMA.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2016-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://portal.pep-net.org/documents/download/id/25789
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marie Djuikom, 2018. "Incentives to labour migration and agricultural productivity: The Bayesian perspective," WIDER Working Paper Series 45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Marie Albertine Djuikom, 2018. "Incentives to labour migration and agricultural productivity: The Bayesian perspective," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Wei Yang & Jorie Knook, 2021. "Spatial evaluation of the impact of a climate change participatory extension programme on the uptake of soil management practices," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(3), pages 539-565, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Microfinance; spillover effects; Bayesian methods; spatial statistics; matching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2016-06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Manuel Paradis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdvlvca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.