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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how credit access affects the welfare of households and sheds light on how household characteristics influence the decision to take credit and the efficiency in credit use. Design/methodology/approach This study uses data from the fourth round of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey conducted in 2009, and examines factors that determine the decision to take credit and the effect of such decision on household welfare. The household welfare variable is measured by the food security indicator and total food expenditure. The study employs endogenous Regime Switching model to account for endogeneity in access to credit and self-selection bias in the decision to participate in credit. Findings The result from the kernel distribution shows households with access to credit have more consumption expenditure than those without access to credit. The ordinary least square regression shows that access to credit increases total consumption by 12 percent without considering self-selection bias. Participation in non-farm activity increases the demand for credit by 17 percent. Land holding, household size, and participation in saving associations increase the probability of getting credit by 5, 11, and 20 percent, respectively. Access to credit appears to have a positive impact on food security in both actual and counterfactual cases for the current credit receivers. Originality/value This study provides a thorough analysis of the impacts of access to credit on household welfare in Ethiopia. The study contributes to the debate on the link between access to credit and household welfare and provides valuable input for policy makers.

Many countries are being challenged to meet Universal Health Coverage (UHC) because of their weak health systems, poor quality of health services and insufficient financing capacity.Ethiopia has implemented community-based health insurance to reduce households` cost they expend for health care and to scale up service utilization. To assess the impact of the community-based health insurance on health care service utilization of households in North Achefer Woreda, West Gojjam Zone, Amhara region, Ethiopia. The study used cross-sectional household survey data both from CBHI members and non-members. The study used clustering method to select the sample kebeles and random sampling method to select the respondents. For qualitative data, focus group discussions and key informants' interviews has been applied. Descriptive statistics and econometric models such as PSM and ESR have been used to analyze the data. The result of PSM shows that households who enrolled in CBHI scheme have 1.05 to 1.35 more frequency visits and 5.4 -7.5 percent more awareness on family planning than notenrolled households. It also depicts that non-CBHI enrolled households have from 11.83 birr to 17.96 birr more monthly health care expenditure than treated groups. But PSM does not account for endogeneity and self-selection bias in participating in CBHI scheme, so that ESR results are more robust and reliable. For households participating in CBHI scheme, the expected average frequency of visit of them would have been less by 0.89, their expected average monthly expenditure would have been 7.9 birr more and their awareness on family planning would have been less by 13.1 percent, if they did not enroll to the scheme.

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