Financial Well-being and Social Protection

This brief presents preliminary results from an evaluation of access to formal finance in Tamil Nadu. The study was conducted by researchers from EPoD – Harvard and Duke University, in partnership with LEAD.

This case study examines one community driven development project in southern India, called the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project (PVP). The study reveals that most poor families in the examined region are included in PVP PIP list (the PVP’s list of poor … Read More

This paper reports results from the randomized evaluation of a group lending microcredit program in Hyderabad, India. A lender worked in 52 randomly selected neighborhoods, leading to an 8.4 percentage point increase in takeup of microcredit. Small business investment and … Read More

This working paper presents findings from an experimental study conducted in urban South India to examine the barriers faced by customers in purchasing a low-cost savings product. The authors found that banks have a high ability to influence financial access … Read More

This paper estimates how experimentally-manipulated experiences with a novel financial product, rainfall index insurance, affect subsequent insurance demand. Using a seven-year panel, we develop three main findings. First, recent experience matters for demand, consistent with overinference from small samples. Second, … Read More

In this study, microfinance clients were randomly assigned to repayment groups that met either weekly or monthly during their first loan cycle, and then graduated to identical meeting frequency for their second loan. Long-run survey data and a follow-up public … Read More

The demand for gold in India has always been high, thus creating a huge potential for growth in the gold loan market. In recent decades, the market has emerged as a reliable sources of credit for low-income households. This report … Read More

This policy note presents findings from a study “Index Insurance to Manage Weather Risks: A Long-term Experiment” where the authors investigate the effectiveness of rainfall insurance as a tool to help farmers manage risk. The research also examines whether farmers … Read More