Does Microfinance Increase Food Security? Evidence from Nepal

Md. Adnan Shahid^1, and Alok Bohara¹

¹Department of Economics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Cite this paper:
Md. Adnan Shahid and Alok Bohara. Does Microfinance Increase Food Security? Evidence from Nepal. Journal of Food Security. 2020; 8(3):89-97. doi: 10.12691/jfs-8-3-2

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact of participation in a microfinance program on household food security using primary data from Nepal. We also disentangle the relationship by gender. Using variants of propensity score matching to adequately address endogeneity of our treatment variable, we find evidence that microfinance has a positive effect on household food security measured by food consumption score. We also present evidence of significant increase in household food security when women are program participants. In comparison, we find no significant gender difference in the effect of microfinance on household food security status.

Keywords:
microfinance food security food consumption score treatment effects

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