Independent Research and Policy Advocacy

Policy Initiatives

Household Finance

Dvara Research’s Household Finance Research initiative aims to rigorously understand the financial choices and decisions of low-income or excluded individuals and households, and their relation to achieving households’ objectives. It has been our consistent endeavour to study financial inclusion as a gateway to a suite of appropriate financial services eventually enabling well-rounded household balance sheets and consumer financial well-being.

Misha Sharma Dvara

Misha Sharma

Head - Household Finance

Preethi Sundararajan

Senior Research Associate

Priyadarshini Ganesan Dvara

Priyadarshini Ganesan

Research Manager - Climate & Agri Finance

Shreenandan H S

Research Associate

Our Work

April 26, 2022 | Dvara Research

A comparison of household portfolios across two nationally representative survey highlights substantial differences in the ownership of financial assets, while similarities in the incidence of indebtedness.

By Niyati Agrawal, Rakshith S. Ponnathpur, Sahana Seetharaman
March 29, 2022 | Dvara Research

In this paper, we review the literature on what constitutes financial well-being of a household and how it can be visualised as the outcome of financial inclusion. If financial well-being can be measured accurately, it can guide both policy makers and financial service providers on what and where are the gaps in how finance can improve the lives of their customers.

By Monami Dasgupta, Geetika Palta
February 8, 2022 | CNBC TV18

India needs to carefully assess its capacity, need and social context while choosing its own path towards not just greater agricultural productivity and better farmer welfare but also ecological sustainability.

February 1, 2022 | Dvara Research

The All-India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) conducted by the National Statistical Office is a nationally representative survey of Indian households that collects information about the assets and liabilities of households.

By Niyati Agrawal, Rakshith S. Ponnathpur, Sahana Seetharaman, Misha Sharma
January 11, 2022 | omifoundation

In recent months, there have been several reports on platform workers demanding greater worker rights in India.

By Rakshith S. Ponnathpur
January 6, 2022 | Dvara Research

Gold dominates household portfolios in India. This has been labelled as irrational behaviour by financially illiterate households. In this paper, we show that household preference towards gold is not irrational in the context of the Indian financial and macroeconomic environment which includes high inflation, financial repression, and capital controls.

By Renuka Sane, Manisk K. Singh
October 20, 2021 | IndiaSpend

The pandemic-led economic crisis has exacerbated the rising indebtedness among India's poor households, and could push more families into a debt trap

By Rakshith S. Ponnathpur
October 7, 2021 | Moneycontrol

There is an urgent need to make formal financial services more flexible, and customer centric, in order to increase its usability

September 30, 2021 | Dvara Research

In this blog post-through a case study, we analyse how microcredit borrowers availed the debt moratarium and through that identify how much they may have been impacted by COVID-19 and lockdowns.

By Rakshith S. Ponnathpur
September 2, 2021 | The Hindu

he microfinance movement in India is set to receive another dose of impetus with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recently released Consultative Document on Regulation of Microfinance in June 2021. Following the Malegam Committee Report, which is a decade old now, the current document looks to reassess and realign the priorities of the sector.