Most of our research projects entail the collection of primary data via survey instruments. Once CMF data sets are cleaned and analyzed they are made publicly available online and can be accessible via the Resources page
Spandana Study – Endline Data – II April 2013
Spandana Study – Endline I Data April 2013
The miracle of microfinance? Evidence from a randomized evaluation April 2013 - Banerjee Abhijit, Duflo Esther, Glennerster Rachel and Kinnan Cynthia
This paper reports on the first randomized evaluation of the impact of introducing the standard microcredit group-based lending product in a new market. In 2005, half of 104 slums in Hyderabad, India were randomly selected for opening of a branch of a particular microfinance institution (Spandana) while the remainder were not, although other MFIs were free to enter those slums. Fifteen to 18 months after Spandana began lending in treated areas, households were 8.8 percentage points more likely to have a microcredit loan. The results of this study are largely consistent with those of four other evaluations of similar programs in different contexts. This paper updates and supersedes the 2010 version, which reported results using one wave of endline surveys.
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Policy Desk Note – Issue #1 – April 2013 April 2013 - Dugal Nikhil
Issue #18 – Eye on Microfinance – January 2013 February 2013 - Eye on Micro Finance Articles in Issue #18:- a) Avaaj Otalo - Evaluation of a mobile based extension service b) Interview with Usha Thorat, Director of CAFRAL c) Saving against all odds - a Savings Story from the field d) Problems with financing Higher Education in India e) Compelling to Save
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Savings and the Poor January 2013 - Kc Deepti, Tiwari Mudita and Agarwal Parul
Following the publication of "Helping the poor to save" in Ideas For India, here is the elaborate version of the subject "Savings for the Poor". In this Focus Note, factors that inhibit the poor to save are being discussed at length with evidence from various CMF based findings as well as studies conducted in the same subject worldwide.
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The Voice of Clients – A Study of Mature MFI Clients December 2012 - Sadhu Santadarshan, Tiwari Mudita and Anushree In the last decade microfinance has emerged as an important tool to provide financial products and services including micro credit to those who were earlier excluded from formal finance. There are different kinds of organizations which are engaged in microfinance activities and they follow different models to provide financial products and services to the consumers. Over the past few years many studies were undertaken to understand the impact of microfinance on the socio economic characteristics of the clients, but very few try to understand the perception of clients about benefits (if any) derived from the availability of microfinance. Thus, it becomes important to understand the perception of the client regarding the changes in these socio economic characteristics while they receive sustained access to loans from the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs).
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Savings Products – Understanding What Works December 2012 - Roger Moise Kenny
Our first factsheet in the factsheet series was written on Microsavings1 and various impact evaluations that were carried out in different parts of the world. Continuing in the same vein, this factsheet will attempt to understand various savings products that have been experimented across the globe.
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Weather Indexed Insurance for Smallholder Farmers – A Survey of Evidence November 2012 - Cole Shawn, Bastian Gautam, Vyas Sangita, Wendel Carina and Stein Daniel
In the absence of formal insurance, most farmers with small land holdings in the developing world rely on community safety nets for risk management. During droughts or other extreme weather events these informal mechanisms tend to break down often forcing smallholders to sell valuable assets, cut back on health spending and take their children out of school. This policy brief provides a summary of a recent systematic review of the available empirical evidence on weather indexed insurance and finally some recommendations for the way forward for policy and research on this topic.
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Futures Prices Information for Small and Medium Farmers November 2012 - Adhikari Samik, Bastian Gautam Gustav, Cole Shawn and Yanagizawa-Drott David This policy paper reports on a series of interventions designed to enable farmers to use information from futures markets with the goal of helping them improve agricultural planning and decision-making, reduce their risk exposure, and increase harvest time revenue.
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