Randomisation, Microfinance, and Female Empowerment

All in one paper!

New in World Development (Ungated here) Nava, Ashraf , Dean, Karlan and Wesley, Yin find that

“using a randomized controlled trial, we examine whether access to and marketing of an individually held commitment savings product lead to an increase in female decision-making power within the household. We find positive impacts, particularly for women who have below median decision-making power in the baseline, and we find this leads to a shift toward female-oriented durables goods.”

Shame that it is difficult to interpret the size of the effect because the dependent variable (for decision-making power) is an index based on whether the respondent, spouse or both decide on 9 different decisions.