This paper, using several data sets, investigates whether microcredit programmes, which
have been operating in rural Bangladesh for over 20 years, have any long-term effects
in improving household income and expenditure and lowering poverty. Both descriptive
and econometric analyses show that microcredit programmes helped participants earn
higher income, consume more, and thereby lifted many of them out of poverty. Findings
also suggest that while participation matters, those who have been with the programmes
continuously for the last 20 years do even better. The paper concludes that poverty
reduction, in particular the reduction of extreme poverty, due to microcredit intervention can
be as high as 9 per cent of the total poverty reduction over the last decade in Bangladesh.