Public Sector Microfinance and Rural Wellbeing:Evidence from BRDB

Zulfiqar Ali and Mansur Ahmed
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Zulfiqar Ali: Senior Research Fellow , Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka.
Mansur Ahmed: Research Associate, Bangladesh Ins titute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka

Bangladesh Development Studies, 2014, vol. 37, issue 3, 27-49

Abstract: The paper looks at the impact of public microfinance on rural wellbeing using primary household survey data with microfinance programmes of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) as the main focus. The paper uses propensity score matching (PSM) technique to evaluate the performance of BRDB’s programme. The result shows that programme households are better-off compared with the control households in terms of per-capita annual earnings and spending and cultivable land holding. However, the impact of BRDB’s microcredit on human capital is weak, as ATTs of spending on health and education, and average years of schooling become statistically insignificant after PSM was performed. The paper constructed composite indexes for human capital, livelihood, non-land asset and women empowerment; and finds that programme households are better-off in terms of all composite indexes except human capital index. Finally, the study looks at the poverty incidence among the programme households and finds that head count poverty rate is 24 per cent among programme households, while the corresponding poverty rate is 35 per cent among control households

Keywords: Microfinance; Public Sector; wellbeing; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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