Independent Research and Policy Advocacy

Microfinance Beyond Lending: Looking at Emerging Claims

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on the recently released NCAER-MFIN report, “Assessing the Effectiveness of Regulated Small Borrowing in India”. In this blog, we turn to some of the broader claims advanced in the report regarding the wider benefits of microfinance and assess whether these claims hold up when situated in a broader empirical context.

Mapping India’s Informal Enterprises: A Descriptive View from ASUSE

This blog is the first in a two-part series on nano-enterprises, a segment that remains underrepresented in official statistics and policy discussions. It presents a descriptive overview of India’s unincorporated enterprises using evidence from ASUSE, laying the empirical foundation for subsequent analysis focused on nano-enterprises.

Understanding Low-Income Households from a Social Capital Perspective

The objective of this paper is to draw attention to those aspects of the lives of Low-Income Households (LIHs) that aren’t related to their income. In doing so, the paper characterises LIHs from a social capital perspective, highlighting the maintenance and strengthening of social capital as a deep-rooted cultural trait that is central to meaning-making in the lives of LIHs.

Understanding CMIE-CPHS Data: A handbook

This document offers a guide to understanding and using CPHS data, focusing on its stratified multi-stage sampling design, weighting methodology, and operationalisation in statistical analysis.