How Infrastructure and Financial Institutions Affect Rural Income and Poverty : Evidence from Bangladesh

The mechanisms by which the poor benefit from economic growth remain a topic of debate in development literature. We address this issue in the context of rural Bangladesh, using a pooled dataset of three household panels between 1991-2001. Expansion of irrigation, paved roads, electricity, and acces...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Khandker, Shahidur R., Koolwal, Gayatri B.
Format: Journal Article
Language:EN
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4628
Description
Summary:The mechanisms by which the poor benefit from economic growth remain a topic of debate in development literature. We address this issue in the context of rural Bangladesh, using a pooled dataset of three household panels between 1991-2001. Expansion of irrigation, paved roads, electricity, and access to formal and informal credit have (through different veins) led to higher rural farm and non-farm incomes, accounting for exogenous local agroclimatic endowments that explain a large part of the variation in the growth of infrastructure and credit programmes. However, this has not translated into substantial reductions in poverty for the poorest households.