Financial access and women's role in household decisions: Empirical evidence from India's National Rural Livelihoods project

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kochar, Anjini; Nagabhushana, Closepet; Sarkar, Ritwik; Shah, Rohan; Singh, Geeta
• 署名单位: Stanford University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102821
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: Women's decision-making; Self help groups; Loan size

摘要

Government programs supporting self help groups (SHGs) generally target women on the assumption that doing so enhances women's decision-making. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. We advance and test one explanation: the loan amounts offered by most SHGs may be too small to impact women. Our analysis is based on SHGs developed under India's National Rural Livelihoods Mission, a program that supported both small loans from internal savings and larger loans through Community Investment Funds (CIFs). Exploiting variation in their phasing and amount, we document a large effect of CIFs on women's decision-making and on intra-household allocations.