Assessing the long-term impact of microcredit on rural poverty: Does the timing and length of participation matter?

Guush Berhane and Cornelis Gardebroek

No 43, ESSP working papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: In recent years, microfinance institutions are seen as beacons of hope to help eradicate poverty through, among others, providing credit to poor rural households. Availability of small but repeated loans is, in the long-term, expected to impact on poverty. However, decades after the introduction of microfinance institutions into many rural areas, there are still questions as to what extent such long-term benefits are realized. This is because evaluating the long-term impact of microfinance provision on household welfare is difficult due to difficulties in controlling for heterogeneities in the borrower pool and subsequent borrowing dynamics.

Keywords: microfinance; impact assessment; Ethiopia; Eastern Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154008

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:fpr:esspwp:43

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ESSP working papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().