资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

This paper makes the case that some interventions designed to improve women’s economic lives need to be tracked long enough for women to manifest new and beneficial behaviors. The study analyzes the time paths of the estimated impacts in a randomized trial providing financial incentives to bank agents (on the supply-side) and basic business training to women business owners (on the demand-side) for them to access and use formal financial services.  The trial took place over a two-year period in 401 villages in five regencies of East Java province, Indonesia. Although estimated impacts of the treatments are positive and significant for seven of eight economic empowerment outcomes, the impacts of most outcomes do not adhere strictly to a linear time trend. For example, strong positive impacts on women’s profits and household welfare do not become significant until the second year after their first exposure to the treatments, whereas the impact on women’s agency in household decision-making is significant only during the first six months since first exposure. In contrast, the timing of some impacts (business practices and savings) does not vary significantly over time and can therefore be measured correctly with the typical constant impact model. The paper’s findings are consistent with other incipient evidence on the delayed effects of some interventions targeting women’s economic empowerment.  They underline the need to measure impacts over a sufficiently long period, which in this case is at least two years, and suggest that this may be especially important to do when interventions seek to fundamentally alter women’s traditional household roles and their agency.