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Tag Search: “financial inclusion”

Socially disadvantaged groups and microfinance in India

The benefits of microfinance are in the details. This column takes a look at lending by commercial banks in India to self-help groups – smaller, informal community-based groups – as a new and successf...

  • Perspectives

The first two years of Modi government

In this article, Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Graduate School at the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, provides his perspective on the performance of the Modi government in ...

  • Perspectives

Public health insurance for tertiary diseases: Lessons from Andhra's Aarogyasri programme

Private health insurance covering tertiary diseases is limited to the upper middle class in India. One reason for low take-up of publicly-financed health insurance among economically weaker sections i...

  • Articles

Achieving financial inclusion: Going cashless

A World Bank survey reveals that while about half of all individuals in India had bank accounts in 2014, only 12% had made a cashless transaction in the past year. In this article, Bappaditya Mukhopa...

  • Perspectives

Social influences and public health insurance utilisation

In developing countries there are often limited formal sources of information about programme benefits or how to access them. Social networks might influence adoption by providing more programme infor...

  • IGC Research on India

How doorstep banking increased savings and income in Sri Lanka

Recent findings in development economics indicate that microloans are likely to perform best when accompanied by financial education, insurance, and savings products. This column presents evidence fro...

  • Articles

Financial inclusion for the poor: Using RCTs for effective programme design

While the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana – the Indian government’s flagship financial inclusion scheme - is impressive in its mission, it does not seem to have achieved meaningful results so far. In ...

  • Perspectives

When higher volatility is good news

Conventional wisdom suggests that access to financial services such as banks and bond markets, providing savings and borrowing instruments, allows smoothing consumption over lifetime, irrespective of...

  • Articles

Beyond leaky pipes: Fixing enrolment systems of welfare schemes

Policy initiatives of JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile numbers) trinity and direct benefit transfer focus on unclogging the supply of benefits under welfare schemes by reducing payment leakages....

  • Articles

JAM and the pursuit of nirvana

The Finance Ministry is proposing to roll all subsidies into a single, lump-sum cash transfer to households, on the back of the JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile numbers) trinity. In this article,...

  • Perspectives

Are banks responsive to credit demand shocks in rural India?

The output of Kharif crops is estimated to decrease by about 2% this year due to deficient monsoon rains in some Indian states. How responsive are commercial banks to a credit demand shock in rural I...

  • Articles

Are self-help groups helpful?

While a lot of funding goes towards community-driven development projects, rigorous evidence on their socioeconomic impact is limited. This column evaluates the impact of JEEViKA – a rural livelihood...

  • Articles