The Impact of Microcredit Programs on Self-Employment Profits: Do Noncredit Program Aspects Matter?
利用孟加拉国格莱珉银行等小额信贷项目的数据，测量参与项目对自雇利润的总效应和非信贷效应，发现参与及非信贷方面对利润有显著正向影响。
Microcredit programs provide a two-tiered approach to poverty alleviation: credit for the purchase of capital inputs in order to promote self-employment and noncredit services and incentives. These noncredit aspects may be an important component of the success of microcredit programs. However, because they are costly to deliver and their contribution to the success of the programs is difficult to measure, they may not be properly valued. - This paper uses primary data on household participants and nonparticipants in Grameen Bank and two similar microcredit programs to measure the total and noncredit effects of microcredit program participation on productivity. The total effect is measured by estimating a profit equation and the noncredit effect by estimating the profit equation conditional on productive capital. Productive capital and program participation are treated as endogenous variables in the analysis. I find large positive effects of participation and the noncredit aspects of participation on self-employment profits. © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology