Essays on microfinance institutions and human capital

Identifier:  TDX:2542

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2542

Authors:  Sackey, Frank Gyimah

Abstract:
The first chapter examines the extent to which access to credit and credit rationing are influenced by the microfinance type based on the major factors determining micro, small and medium enterprises’ access to credit from microfinance institutions in the era of financial liberalization. The data for the study were gleaned from the microfinance institutions’ credit and loan records consisting of the various pieces of information provided by the borrowers in the loan application process. Our results are puzzling and show that credit rationing is not influenced by the microfinance types but by the individual microfinance companies. Our results also show that the Government microfinance type is the most severe in the rationing behavior The second chapter aims at testing the Ghana Microfinance Policy, set up to support and empower the vulnerable through access to credit. We resort to the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to determine if there is positive discrimination in favour of women and young entrepreneurs in the rationing behavior of the microfinance companies. This is what we should expect if the policy is effective. Our results show that even after controlling for a large number of borrower characteristics, microfinance type and credit worthiness variables, there is positive discrimination that favors female and young entrepreneurs. The third and the last chapter looks at the importance of African countries’ leaders’ characteristics and regime transitions and how these factors affect the health status as a development indicator of their citizens using infant mortality rate as a measure. A unique dataset comprising 45 sub-Saharan African countries spanning from 1970 t0 2010 were used for the study. The overall results are suggestive of a democratic advantage in the process of achieving effective health policy outcomes for promoting health and the wellbeing of the citizens in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, at least in the long run.