This article applies the capabilities approach in order to analyse microcredit as a tool for resource conversion permitting poor households to take advantage of latent opportunities. This approach calls for linking microcredit with the choices of the poor themselves. A sample of 290 rural households from the Madagascar highlands has been surveyed two consecutive years. To characterize the dimensions of poverty based on social practices of the poor and to inform about the most relevant dimensions available for a conversion process, data have been processed by a factor analysis. A hierarchical classification then permits the distribution of the households over three capabilities levels. Finally, an ordered multinomial logit brings out how microcredit influences the likelihood that a household receiving such a loan will reach a higher capability level. The main findings indicate that the microcredit represents a robust means to obtain a higher level of capability regardless the starting situation. Moreover, when the process of borrowing endures, poor households enter into a learning process which increases the effect of microcredit. Regardless of the gender of the household head, microcredit increases the probability to reach an enhanced level of capability, except for the poorest household headed by a woman. The education of the head of household improves the effect of microcredit only if the productive system implemented needs competences related to the educational attainment.
Résumé Cette contribution examine le lien entre le microcrédit et la pauvreté multidimensionnelle. Nous modélisons cette relation à partir de l’approche des capabilités de Sen. A partir des données de l’étude d’impact Cecam à Madagascar, la régression économétrique analyse le lien entre le microcrédit et la pauvreté multidimensionnelle. Ainsi, la principale variable d’intérêt montant du microcrédit indique une réduction de la probabilité d’être pauvre. Certaines variables de contrôle telles que le nombre d’année d’adhésion, le genre du chef de ménage et les chocs de production améliorent les capabilités des ménages tandis que d’autres variables de contrôle telles que le niveau d’instruction du chef de ménage et les dépenses liées aux chocs de la vie familiale affaiblissent les capabilités des ménages ruraux dans les hautes terres malgaches.
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