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Studies of risk and its consequences tend to focus on one risk factor, such as a drought or an economic crisis. Yet 2003 household surveys in rural Kilimanjaro and Ruvuma, two cash-crop-growing regions in Tanzania that experienced a precipitous coffee price decline around the turn of the millennium, identified health and drought shocks as well as commodity price declines as major risk factors, suggesting the need for a comprehensive approach to analyzing household vulnerability. In fact, most coffee growers, except the smaller ones in Kilimanjaro, weathered the coffee price declines rather well, at least to the point of not being worse off than non-coffee growers. Conversely, improving health conditions and reducing the effect of droughts emerge as critical to reduce vulnerability. One-third of the rural households in Kilimanjaro experienced a drought or health shocks, resulting in an estimated 8 percent welfare loss on average, after using savings and aid. Rainfall is more reliable in Ruvuma, and drought there did not affect welfare. Surprisingly, neither did health shocks, plausibly because of lower medical expenditures given limited health care provisions.

Agriculture --- Crime --- Crops and Crop Management Systems --- Economic Theory and Research --- Families --- Health Care --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health Services --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Holistic Approach --- Hospitalization --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Mortality --- Poverty Reduction --- Quality of Life --- Risk Factors --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Unemployment

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The impact of micro-credit interventions on existing credit markets is theoretically ambiguous. Previous empirical work suggests the entry of a joint-liability lender may lead to a positive impact on the informal lending rate. This paper presents the first randomized controlled trial-based evidence on this question. Households in rural Bihar, India, were offered low-cost credit through a government-led self-help group program, the rollout of which was randomized at the panchayat level. The intervention led to a dramatic 14.5 percent decline in the use of informal credit, as households substituted to lower-cost self-help group loans. Due to the program, the average rate paid on recent loans fell from 69 to 58 percent per year overall. Rates on informal loans also declined slightly. Among landless households, informal lending rates fell from 65.5 to 63.2 percent, decreasing by 40 percent the gap in rates paid by landless versus landowning households. Two years after the initiation of the program, significant positive impacts on asset ownership among landless households were apparent. Impacts on various indicators of women's empowerment were mixed, and showed no clear direction when aggregated, nor was there any impact on consumption expenditures.

Micro-Credit --- Rural Credit Markets --- Self-Help Groups