Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: The Effects of Micro-Finance Access on Economic and Social Outcomes of Low Income Women

关于获得小额信贷对妇女的经济和社会成果的影响的研究主要集中在短期影响。此外，很少有实证研究确定获得小额信贷对妇女赋权、经济成果和其他社会成果的因果影响。这一拟议的研究项目将利用实地实验来研究获得小额信贷对低收入妇女的若干结果的长期影响。这项研究将基于2012年对低收入妇女进行的一项关于获得小额信贷的试验性研究的后续调查。这项研究将在妇女最初获得小额信贷七年后收集和分析有关保健、教育以及妇女赋权(家庭内的决策权)的信息。这将是首批关注长期结果而不是短期结果的小额信贷实验研究之一。这些证据将有助于确定小额信贷是否可以被用作有效的反贫困计划。这一研究项目的结果将为制定美国和世界各地的减贫政策提供重要的投入。与早先的研究发现小额信贷对教育、卫生和妇女决策权投资的积极和显著的短期影响不同，最近的随机对照试验(RCT)研究没有发现这种影响。一个重要的问题是，这些结果的差异是由于时间框架的不同还是方法的不同。这项研究项目将调查获得小额信贷对卫生、教育和赋予妇女权力的三个方面-经济、人口和心理--赋予妇女权力的投资的长期影响。它将对2012年一项关于低收入妇女获得小额信贷对其社会经济成果的影响的研究进行一项区域工作队的后续行动。该项目将有助于我们理解妇女获得信贷与改善健康和教育成果以及赋予妇女权力之间的联系--S。这一研究项目的结果将有助于美国制定有效的政策来减少低收入人口的贫困。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Studies of the effects of access to micro-finance on economic and social outcomes for women have mainly focused on short-term effects. Moreover, there are few empirical studies that establish a causal effect of microcredit credit access on women's empowerment, economic outcomes and other social outcomes. This proposed research project will use field experiments to study the long-term effects of micro-finance access on a number of outcomes for low income women. The study will be based on a follow-up survey of low income women in a 2012 experimental study of access to micro-credit. The study will gather and analyze information about health, and education as well as women's empowerment (decision making power within their households) seven years after their initial access to micro-credit. This will be one of the first experimental studies of microcredit that focuses on long run outcomes rather than on short-run outcomes. The evidence would help determine whether microcredit provision can be used as an effective anti-poverty program. The results of this research project will provide important inputs into the formulation of policies to reduce poverty in the U.S. and around the world. In contrast to earlier studies that find positive and significant short-run effects of microcredit on investments in education, health and women's decision-making power, recent randomized control trial (RCT) studies find no such effects. An important question is whether these differences in outcomes are due to differences in time frames or differences in methodologies. This research project will investigate the long-term effects of micro-credit access on investment in health, education, and three aspects of women empowerment---economic, demographic, and psychological---women empowerment. It will conduct an RCT follow-up of a 2012 study of the effects of microcredit access among low income women on their socioeconomic outcomes. This project will contribute to our understanding of the linkage between women's access to credit and improvements in health and educational outcomes as well as women?s empowerment. The results of this research project will contribute to the US's ability to craft effective policies to reduce poverty among low income populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.