Medium and Long-Term Participation in Microfinance: An Evaluation Using a New Panel Dataset from Bangladesh

Asad Islam

No 02-10, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to estimate the impacts of medium and long term participation in microfinance programs. It utilises a new, large and unique 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 microfinance 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 microfinance lending.

Keywords: Microfinance; Bangladesh; triple-difference; matching; medium-term; long-term. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C33 G21 H43 I31 O12 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2010-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2010/0210mediumislam.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mos:moswps:2010-02

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.monash.e ... esearch/publications

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Angus ().