Credit programs for the poor and the nutritional Status of children in rural Bangladesh

The impact of group-based credit programs on the nutritional status of children by gender in rural Bangladesh is evaluated. Lacking exclusion restrictions of the usual sort, the effect of credit program participation by gender of participant is identified by imposing a factor structure on the regression errors. Women's credit is found to have a large and statistically significant impact on two of three measures of the nutritional well-being of both boy and girl children. Credit provided men has no statistically significant impact and the null hypothesis of equal credit effects by gender of participant is rejected.