income, and lower levels of poverty. Elsewhere, microcredit comes with lower expenditure and income per capita and higher poverty rates.

**Table 14.** **<u>Summary of the Effects of Microcredit</u>**

||Metrop|olitan|Lower<br>Urb|Egypt:<br>an|Lower<br>Rur|Egypt:<br>al|Upper<br>Urb|Egypt:<br>an|Upper<br>Ru|Egypt:<br>ral|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Coeff-||Coeff-||Coeff-||Coeff-||Coeff-||
||icient|t-stat|icient|t-stat|icient|t-stat|icient|t-stat|icient|t-stat|
|Farm income per capita|398.5|_5.99_|-61.8|**_1.82†_**|-141.4|_-3.73_|118.8|_2.80_|-257.1|_-7.05_|
|Non-farm income per capita|896.9|_4.70_|573.9|_4.44_|113.5|_2.93_|604.5|_5.02_|121.9|_3.79_|
|ln(expenditureper capita)|0.10|_3.00_|0.10|_2.42_|-0.01|_-0.71_|-0.25|_-8.91_|-0.14|_-9.10_|
|ln(income per capita)|0.12|_2.96_|-0.03|_-0.66_|-0.04|_-2.25_|-0.21|_-6.70_|-0.11|_-6.65_|
|ln(food expenditure per capita)|0.21|_6.49_|0.18|_4.22_|-0.01|_-0.64_|-0.11|**_-3.19†_**|-0.09|_-5.34_|
|Food as share of expenditure|0.05|_5.67_|0.04|_3.40_|0.001|_0.25_|0.06|_10.40_|0.02|_5.95_|
|Unemployment rate (in area)|0.03|_1.85_|0.01|_0.33_|0.04|_5.67_|-0.01|_-0.93_|0.01|_1.92_|
|% in area working for a wage|1.97|_0.85_|12.07|_2.95_|18.08|_11.35_|-3.82|_-1.36_|20.36|_15.36_|
|% in area self-employed|38.02|_10.29_|32.98|_7.35_|16.80|_11.60_|33.21|_14.63_|11.69|_8.79_|
|Illiteracy rate (in area)|-0.03|_-2.19_|-0.04|_-1.10_|-0.08|_-7.48_|-0.02|_-1.06_|-0.09|_-7.80_|
|Poverty gap rate (P1)|-0.59|_-6.58_|-0.76|_-2.65_|0.55|_2.00_|4.37|_5.76_|4.52|_8.38_|
|Headcountpovertyrate(P0)|-3.47|_-4.24_|-4.17|_-2.29_|3.15|_2.34_|16.75|_6.55_|16.99|_8.93_|
|Memo items:|||||||||||
|# of households in sample|2961||2514||7772||2558||6675||
|Number of treatment cases|235||116||659||269||827||
|Region of common support:|||||||||||
|Lr bound propensity score|0.01||0.01||0.01||0.02||0.05||
|Upr boundpropensityscore|0.33||0.13||0.46||0.29||0.30||
|Mean values of variables:|||||||||||
|Farm income per capita|55.37||124.09||735.54||120.99||709.71||
|Non-farm income per capita|955.29||887.50||354.76||722.19||245.28||
|ln(expenditureper capita)|8.15||7.87||7.68||7.80||7.43||
|ln(income per capita)|8.28||8.06||7.85||7.96||7.61||
|ln(food expend. per capita)|7.27||7.06||6.97||6.97||6.75||
|Food as share of expenditure|0.43||0.46||0.50||0.45||0.52||
|Unemployment rate (in area)|0.05||0.06||0.04||0.06||0.03||
|% in area working for a wage|76.15||61.07||45.46||62.81||41.45||
|% in area self-employed|20.92||31.02||40.37||31.57||42.79||
|Illiteracy rate (in area)|0.18||0.22||0.33||0.24||0.46||
|Poverty gap rate (P1)|0.59||1.22||1.65||3.26||6.88||
|Headcountpovertyrate(P0)|4.36||7.32||11.94||16.30||34.19||

_Notes:_ Results shown here are based on propensity score matching using kernel matching. Only treatment cases in the area of common support are matched. † Nearest-neighbor matching and regression model do not find a statistically significant effect here. Coefficients highlighted in bright yellow are statistically significant at the 5% level or higher; those highlighted in pale yellow are statistically significant at the 10% level.

_Source:_ Authors’ calculations based on HIECS and community survey 2004/2005.

On explanation for this surprising result is that matching techniques work well when the variables in the propensity score equation capture, and hence control for, all the relevant factors that distinguish one _Impact Evaluation: Egyptian Social Fund for Development_ _Version of June 29, 2009_ _Page 23 of 36_