Microcredit Impacts: Evidence from a Large-Scale Observational Study in Brazil

This paper studies the impact of microcredit in Brazil. We use a propensity score matching on original primary data on business and personal outcomes to compare veteran clients of BNDES—Brazil’s largest government-owned development bank—to a matched sample of more recent clients. Based on administrative data as well as data from a survey of 2107 clients from the South and Northeast regions of Brazil, the findings show no significant impacts on income, employment generation, access to credit, and business formalization, except for the poorest Municipalities of the Northeast, where microcredit presented positive effects.