School of Economics, Minzu University of China, Beijing 100081, China.
School of Economics, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 31;19(17):10872. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191710872.
This study presents nonlinear evidence of the effects of a microcredit program implemented in poverty-stricken villages in China on rural public health using multivariate-ordered Probit and IV-ordered Probit models. The results, which were based on a unique set of data gathered from two rounds of official tracking statistics obtained through investigation (2015 and 2018) at a household level, suggest that rural residents' health levels and health insurance demands are related to the formal credit amount that they receive from the microcredit program. Further, the amount of debt that remains to be paid is a negative mediator and the poverty reduction degree is a positive mediator for the health impact of credit. After dividing the sample into subgroups according to income, credit rating and social network, the results show heterogeneity: the health outcomes of groups with a low income, a high credit rating and a strong social network are more significantly improved by loans. The estimations are still robust after using network and village clan numbers as instrumental variables to address endogeneity. Although most of the existing literature demonstrates that credit and indebtedness have negative impacts on health, our results supplement previous findings of the positive causality between access to formal credit and rural public health by showing that the former can exert positive effects by relaxing individuals' external constraints and increasing health spending.
本研究使用多元有序 Probit 和 IV 有序 Probit 模型，提供了中国贫困农村实施小额信贷计划对农村公共卫生影响的非线性证据。这些结果基于通过调查（2015 年和 2018 年）在家庭层面收集的两轮官方跟踪统计数据的独特数据集得出，表明农村居民的健康水平和健康保险需求与他们从小额信贷计划中获得的正规信贷额度有关。此外，未偿债务额是信用对健康影响的负中介，减贫程度是信用对健康影响的正中介。在根据收入、信用评级和社会网络将样本分为子组后，结果显示出异质性：收入低、信用评级高和社会网络强的群体的贷款对健康的改善更为显著。使用网络和村庄氏族数量作为工具变量来解决内生性问题后，估计结果仍然稳健。尽管大多数现有文献表明信贷和负债对健康有负面影响，但我们的结果通过表明获得正规信贷可以通过放松个人的外部约束和增加健康支出来对农村公共卫生产生积极影响，补充了信贷与农村公共卫生之间存在正向因果关系的先前发现。
