Does access and use of financial service smoothen household food consumption?

Abstract

The study relies on Ghana's Living Standard Measurement Survey to test the hypothesis of no relationship between credit and household food consumption expenditure. Albeit the plausibility of endogeneity problems, we use single stage and pooled least squares, given the non-availability of national panel data in Ghana and lack of better instruments in the Living Standard data. The is does not provide enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis. This suggests that access to credit does not contribute to the smoothening of household consumption. This observation cuts across different sub-samples based on socio-economic classification. We recommend circumspection in propagating the ability of credit in smoothening consumption..