| By: |
Asadul Islam;
Chandana Maitra;
Debayan Pakrashi;
Russell Smyth |
| Abstract: |
We use a large household level panel dataset collected from rural households
in Bangladesh to examine the effects of microcredit program participation on
household food security. We examine how microcredit affects different measures
of food security; namely, household calorie consumption, dietary diversity
indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15-49
years) and children under the age of five. We find that microcredit program
participation increases calorie consumption both at the intensive and
extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed
effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of
participation on food security may be non-linear in which participation
initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it,
before improving it in the long run. Our results may explain why short-term
evaluation of microcredit might not show any positive effects. |
| Keywords: |
microcredit, food security, calorie availability, malnutrition, dietary diversity |
| JEL: |
G21 I3 I14 Q18 |
| Date: |
2015–02 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-16&r=mfd |