Microfinance and Gender Empowerment.

In the past 30 years, microfinance has carried many promises of social and economic transformation, with the shift towards targeting women being seen as a major strategic move through which the promise of social development could be most effectively delivered. However, ethnographic studies have shown that many women relinquish the use of their loans to male members of the household, belying the empowering promise of microfinance. We propose a simple model of household bargaining which examines how providing women with credit affects production and decision-making power in the household. Following Bergstrom (1996), we account for the roles of both divorce and non-cooperation in the household as relevant fall-back options in the bargaining strategy of each spouse. We show that the introduction of a microcredit programme is likely to have widely heterogeneous impacts, and can adversely affect the bargaining power of some women. We demonstrate that access to credit allows a woman to strengthen her bargaining position through an expansion of her autonomous activities (the causal mechanism hoped for) only in a limited number of cases: when she is able to invest her new capital profitably in an autonomous activity, and her husband has no alternative activity in which the same capital would generate comparable returns, or lacks the power to overrule her preferred investment choice. The two cases in which it is most likely that the availability of credit would enable the woman to strengthen her bargaining position within the household are (i) when capital can be invested in a cooperative activity to which both spouses contribute in an important way, and (ii) when a large share of the household budget is devoted to expenditures on household public goods.

How to grow quickly: land distribution, agricultural growth and poverty reduction in Vietnam (1992-1998)

This thesis explores how, in the wake of momentous agrarian reforms implemented during the 1980s and 1990s, Vietnam succeeded in generating both a strong increase in agricultural growth, and remarkable trends in poverty reduction. Three specific channels of transmission between agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction are explored and evaluated empirically using the Vietnamese Living Standard Survey. Chapter 2 investigates the impact on agricultural investments of the strengthening in tenure security induced by Vietnam's 1993 Land Law, which set up a new land tenure system based on de jure private property rights. Idiosyncratic characteristics of Vietnam's land reform and the panel nature of the VLSS are taken advantage of to capture the exogenous changes in tenure security brought by the 1993 Land Law. By interpreting the results in the light of Vietnam's agrarian history, I shed light on the role of formal institutions during the process of establishing a new private property right system. Chapter 3 explores the role of education in promoting agricultural growth and documents how, in the 1980s, Vietnam emerged from thirty years of war with literacy levels that are normally achieved by middle-income countries. The differential in educational attainment between North and South Vietnam is used to devise an instrumental variable strategy and to evaluate the contribution of Vietnam's high initial education levels to rice yields. The results confirm the importance of literacy and numeracy skills as pre-conditions for agricultural growth but highlight the importance of non-linearities in the impact of schooling, and of factoring in information on the quality in education in order to better understand the processes through which education affects economic efficiency. Finally, Chapter 4 showed that growth in the agricultural sector had been remarkably pro-poor as it benefited even the poorest of the poor, probably because of favourable initial conditions for pro-poor agricultural growth

Microfinance and Gender Empowerment

In the past 30 years, microfinance has carried many promises of social and economic transformation, with the shift towards targeting women being seen as a major strategic move through which the promise of social development could be most effectively delivered. However, ethnographic studies have shown that many women relinquish the use of their loans to male members of the household, belying the empowering promise of microfinance. We propose a simple model of household bargaining which examines how providing women with credit affects production and decision-making power in the household. Following Bergstrom (1996), we account for the roles of both divorce and non-cooperation in the household as relevant fall-back options in the bargaining strategy of each spouse. We show that the introduction of a microcredit programme is likely to have widely heterogeneous impacts, and can adversely affect the bargaining power of some women. We demonstrate that access to credit allows a woman to strengthen her bargaining position through an expansion of her autonomous activities (the causal mechanism hoped for) only under very specific circumstances: when she is able to invest her new capital profitably in an autonomous activity, and her husband has no alternative activity in which the same capital would generate comparable returns. The case in which the availability of credit is most likely to strengthen women's bargaining position in the household is when capital can be invested in a cooperative activity in which both spouses contribute in an important way

Microfinance and Gender Empowerment

In the past 30 years, microfinance has carried many promises of social and economic transformation, with the shift towards targeting women being seen as a major strategic move through which the promise of social development could be most effectively delivered. However, ethnographic studies have shown that many women relinquish the use of their loans to male members of the household, belying the empowering promise of microfinance. We propose a simple model of household bargaining which examines how providing women with credit affects production and decision-making power in the household. Following Bergstrom (1996), we account for the roles of both divorce and non-cooperation in the household as relevant fall-back options in the bargaining strategy of each spouse. We show that the introduction of a microcredit programme is likely to have widely heterogeneous impacts, and can adversely affect the bargaining power of some women. We demonstrate that access to credit allows a woman to strengthen her bargaining position through an expansion of her autonomous activities (the causal mechanism hoped for) only under very specific circumstances: when she is able to invest her new capital profitably in an autonomous activity, and her husband has no alternative activity in which the same capital would generate comparable returns. The case in which the availability of credit is most likely to strengthen women's bargaining position in the household is when capital can be invested in a cooperative activity in which both spouses contribute in an important way

How to grow equitably : land redistribution, agricultural growth and poverty reduction in Vietnam (1992-1998)

This thesis explores how, in the wake of momentous agrarian reforms implemented during the 1980s and 1990s, Vietnam succeeded in generating both a strong increase in agricultural growth, and remarkable trends in poverty reduction. Three specific channels of transmission between agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction are explored and evaluated empirically using the Vietnamese Living Standard Survey. Chapter 2 investigates the impact on agricultural investments of the strengthening in tenure security induced by Vietnam's 1993 Land Law, which set up a new land tenure system based on de jure private property rights. Idiosyncratic characteristics of Vietnam's land reform and the panel nature of the VLSS are taken advantage of to capture the exogenous changes in tenure security brought by the 1993 Land Law. By interpreting the results in the light of Vietnam's agrarian history, I shed light on the role of formal institutions during the process of establishing a new private property right system. Chapter 3 explores the role of education in promoting agricultural growth and documents how, in the 1980s, Vietnam emerged from thirty years of war with literacy levels that are normally achieved by middle-income countries. The differential in educational attainment between North and South Vietnam is used to devise an instrumental variable strategy and to evaluate the contribution of Vietnam's high initial education levels to rice yields. The results confirm the importance of literacy and numeracy skills as pre-conditions for agricultural growth but highlight the importance of non-linearities in the impact of schooling, and of factoring in information on the quality in education in order to better understand the processes through which education affects economic efficiency. Finally, Chapter 4 showed that growth in the agricultural sector had been remarkably pro-poor as it benefited even the poorest of the poor, probably because of favourable initial conditions for pro-poor agricultural growth.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Microfinance and Gender Empowerment

In the past 30 years, microfinance has carried many promises of social and economic transformation, with the shift towards targeting women being seen as a major strategic move through which the promise of social development could be most effectively delivered. However, ethnographic studies have shown that many women relinquish the use of their loans to male members of the household, belying the empowering promise of microfinance. We propose a simple model of household bargaining which examines how providing women with credit affects production and decision-making power in the household. Following Bergstrom (1996), we account for the roles of both divorce and non-cooperation in the household as relevant fall-back options in the bargaining strategy of each spouse. We show that the introduction of a microcredit programme is likely to have widely heterogeneous impacts, and can adversely affect the bargaining power of some women. We demonstrate that access to credit allows a woman to strengthen her bargaining position through an expansion of her autonomous activities (the causal mechanism hoped for) only under very specific circumstances: when she is able to invest her new capital profitably in an autonomous activity, and her husband has no alternative activity in which the same capital would generate comparable returns. The case in which the availability of credit is most likely to strengthen women's bargaining position in the household is when capital can be invested in a cooperative activity in which both spouses contribute in an important way.microfinance household decision-making bargaining microcredit intrahousehold allocation gender empowerment Bangladesh

Level of Determinants Impact on Buyer’s Purchasing Intention in Motor Liability Insurance: Case of Vietnam

Motor liability insurance has been included in the compulsory insurance category that each vehicle owner of every type of motor vehicle must participate in in Vietnam. However, in fact, the participation in this type of insurance is not popular and not strictly managed. This paper presents an approach to modeling and analyzing the possible determinants that may affect the intention to buy motor liability insurance for motor vehicle owners in the North of Vietnam. The target audience of this study is motorcycle owners. Based on the theories of buying intention, buying behavior and the specific characteristics of this insurance, this study has proposed a model with 4 factors influencing intention to participate in the insurance: Attitudes towards risk and insurance, subjective standards, Insurance Perceptions, and Product Accessibility. Taken together, these factors model a consumer's tendency toward insurance intentions for motorbike owners. The results show that all of the above factors have influence on the intention of motorcycle owners to participate in insurance. Keywords: Motor liability insurance, Buying intention, Purchase decision DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-8-11 Publication date: April 30th 202