Partner: People’s Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE)

This round table discussion was organised to engage research sector experts for providing inputs on two of Catalyst strategic research initiatives: Impact assessment study to be conducted by People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE), and an ethnographic small merchant study to be conducted by IFMR LEAD.

Dr. J.S.Tomar from the Central Statistics Office, India did a brief presentation on the 6th Economic Census of India. Following this presentation, the discussion focused on the aforementioned research initiatives. The participants shared inputs on the study’s scope, approach, and data collection strategies.

Since the studies are unique in nature, the collaboration and input from the audience helped validate the proposed methodology and approach. The discussion produced great suggestions on small tweaks to improve the rigour and external validity of the impact assessment and the ethnographic merchant study. For example, one suggestion was to conduct short high-frequency process monitoring. In this approach, a sub-sample is selected and a 5-7 minute phone call is conducted to assess the shift in behaviour over time.

Twenty-one participants representing fifteen organizations participated in the round table.