Access to Credit and Quality of Education in Vietnam

Abstract

This paper tries to determine the relationship between two of growth engines in Vietnam: access to credit and education. To avoid potential bias due to the endogeneity of access to credit variable, this paper utilizes the propensity score matching. This paper takes advantage of the Young Lives Survey of Vietnam that collected information on children of various ages to observe the effect of credit access in different stage of childhood. The result of propensity score matching analysis shows that the quality of education, measured by test scores, is impacted significantly by access to credit when the child is young and household income is low. However, when the child is older, most of the input to enhance the quality of education comes from outside of household resources, such as school, friends, and teachers, and the access to credit status of the household does not have significant effects on the quality of education.