Research Paper or Working Paper is the culmination of a research process and critical thinking. Here, we present our findings of primary research, surveys, and/or literature review in a format that is mostly found in academic papers. These may take us several months to produce and may involve a slow pace and deliberate reflection by the researchers.
In this paper, we take a look back at 30 months of action research work and reflect on the process, the hurdles overcome, and the lessons learned. Unlike our usual publications, this one is a meta-reflection on the method of action research. We hope it will be useful for other organizations like ours that are doing this kind of work and to funders who fund it.
How can finance be designed and structured for agriculture, farmers, agricultural households, agrarian communities and the larger economy so as to ensure economic equity, social well-being, and environmental sustainability?
This paper aims to document the unique characteristics of the financial lives of low-income households in India. It focuses on the intra-year fluctuations in income that are faced by these households owing to the precarity of their occupations.
The 2016 Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is a landmark legislation with the potential to impact every borrower. This paper focuses on Part III of the IBC, which deals with natural persons, proprietorships, and personal guarantors for corporate debt. Through the paper, we attempt to estimate the potential consequences of the Fresh Start Process (FSP) defined under this Part. The IBC lays out economic criteria that can qualify (or disqualify) an applicant for FSP. Under FSP, a borrower must be asset-lite, have a low income, and hold minimal outstanding debt to qualify. These thresholds determine the applicability of the process once the IBC is fully notified. Thus, empirical estimates regarding the effects of the provisions on the Indian credit market are crucial to deciphering the impact of the IBC, more specifically, the FSP.
Governments and lenders provide loan moratoria to help struggling borrowers, particularly during an economic crisis. While it can provide relief to borrowers, such a policy also has a possibility of inducing moral hazard among the beneficiaries.
Despite significant policy support for financial inclusion, there is little evidence about what has been achieved by way of knowing which households and individuals are financially included, or what is the impact of such inclusion on these persons.
Colombia’s healthcare domain, like many other sectors in the country, was completely overhauled as part of the country’s sweeping reforms that followed the adoption of a new Constitution in 1991.
In this paper, we document the experience of Germany’s SHI system with managed competition and the challenges faced by this sub-system in faithfully implementing the principles of managed competition as originally envisioned by Enthoven.
In this paper, we look at what made a transition to managed competition possible in the Netherlands, how managed competition has played out, and the challenges that the system currently faces.
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.
In all our research efforts, we strive to maintain an independent voice that speaks for the low-income household and household enterprises. Our ability to perform this function is significantly enhanced by our commitment to disseminate as a pure public good, all the intellectual capital that we create.
