Health shocks and the mitigating role of microcredit-The case of rural households in Vietnam

This paper examines the effects of health shocks and the mitigating role of microcredit using a large household panel data set from rural Vietnam. The research findings are mixed; particularly, the economic impacts of health shocks and the role of microcredit in mitigating these effects vary greatly, depending upon the specific shocks and the outcomes in question. It is noteworthy that rural households may mobilize child or elderly labor in response to labor lost due to health shocks, and microcredit may reduce these adverse effects to some extent.