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Despite the widespread use of microfinance programs since the early 1990s, there is little empirical research on the effects of microfinance on recipients’ livelihoods in rural areas. We therefore compared the effects of governmental and non-governmental microfinance on livelihood and empowerment in rural Bangladesh. Data were collected in two phases from the same 300 microfinance beneficiaries and 200 control respondents using face-to-face interviews. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (propensity score matching, Rosenbaum bounds, and ordinary least squares) were used for analysis. Fixed effects instrumental variable estimates were also designed to minimize spillover effects. Microfinance significantly contributed to different livelihood and empowerment dimensions to ultimately improve livelihoods, with the greatest improvements seen in non-governmental rather than governmental microfinance recipients.

Southern part of Bangladesh is one of the most affected areas confronting the effects of climate change especially in agricultural sector. The study was planned to examine effect of climate change on agriculture in the saline prone areas, and estimate the level of contribution of the selected characteristics of the farmers to the effect of climate change on agriculture. For this reason, data were collected from 88 farmers under study group and 30 farmers under control group from 16 March, 2017 to 15 April, 2017. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression, t-test were used for data analysis. There was a negative effect of climate change on agriculture comparing the study and control group changed score from 2015 to 2017. In case of study group, 61.4 percent of the farmers had medium effect, 17.0 percent had low effect and 21.6 percent of the farmers had high effect of climate change on agriculture. It was also found that out of eleven factors, seven namely age, level of education, annual family income, farming experience, training exposure, agricultural knowledge and knowledge on climate change had significant contribution to the effect of climate change on agriculture in the saline prone areas. It is concluded that climate change may play a significant role in decreasing the yield of cereal crops, yield of vegetables, yield of pulses and increasing number of adopted new varieties of agricultural crops by the farmers. It is recommended that the Bangladesh government and NGOs should take initiative for reducing effect of climate change on agriculture for a sustainable agricultural development.

Summary This paper analyzes the impact of different microfinance providers on basic rights and quality of life. Data were collected in two phases from 300 microfinance beneficiaries and 200 control respondents. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multiple regression, propensity score matching, and treatment effect models were used for analysis. Microfinance appears to increase the basic rights of respondents and help improve quality of life; the positive changes are consistently higher in non-governmental microfinance recipients. These data may help to formulate new policies that help to improve rural livelihood.

We investigate the impact of microfinance providers on economic, family and social, and political empowerment. Data were collected in two phases from 300 microfinance beneficiaries and 200 controls. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multiple regression, propensity score matching and the Rosenbaum bound method were used for analysis. In the majority of areas, microfinance increased recipients’ empowerment. Both econometric estimations showed the largest effects for family and social and political empowerment in recipients of governmental microfinance, while non-governmental microfinance recipients saw greater improvements in economic empowerment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

The New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System (NRCMS) in China has been established to ensure improved medical care support for all categories of Chinese peasants to offset their burden of excessive medical care expenditures. The primary aim of this paper is to identify an appropriate alternative modelling approach for the patients’ medical expenditures. Data were collected from Jiaojiang city through cluster and multistage random sampling procedure, which was comprised of 4,630 enrolled rural people under NRCMS. The paper presented the fi rst comparison of common econometric medical expenditures modelling approaches. Major fi ndings reveal that the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) predictive accuracy appears to be better than the Finite Mixture Model (FMM) and GLM (log link) was the best performer among all approaches. It may be attributed due to the structural difference of medical expenditures between China and other developing countries compared to the developed countries. This suggests that the Chinese government may fi nd an alternative to choose GLM approach among others to minimize the peasants’ medical expenditures under NRCMS.