Abstract
This paper examines the impact of micro-credit on employment. Household-level data was collected, following a quasi-experimental design, in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Three borrower groups are compared: Current borrowers; Pipeline borrowers and Non-borrowers. Pipeline borrowers are included to control for self-selection effects. It is argued that microcredit causes a substitution of employment away from employment-for-pay to selfemployment. Therefore, the effect on total employment is ambiguous. OLS and fixed effects regression are used to examine separately self-employment and employment-for-pay between three groups of borrowers. For Pakistan, there is no evidence that micro-credit effects employment. However, for Bangladesh, there is robust evidence consistent with this hypothesis.
Original language | English |
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Place of Publication | Glasgow |
Publisher | University of Strathclyde |
Pages | 1-27 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Volume | 16-10 |
Publication status | Published - 21 Jul 2016 |
Keywords
- micro-credit
- poverty
- self-employment