Recent events in India have brought a fresh focus on the appropriate regulatory stance towards micro-finance. In this paper, we review facts and recent experience about Indian microfinance. We analyse the puzzles of financial regulation in this field from first principles, and argue that the...

The recent episode of unusually high trading activity in stocks with weak fundamentals, such as those of GameStop Corp and AMC Entertainment, has re-focused the spotlight on stocks whose returns are not commensurate with the financial health of the firm. Regulators and stock exchanges have...

In this paper we estimate the impact on domestic trade in agricultural commodities of India's demonetization exercise that invalidated 86% of the currency in circulation. Using data on arrivals and prices from close to 3000 regulated markets in India for 35 major agricultural commodities for the...

Tobacco products such as bidi and cigarette, both of which are smoked, cater to different kinds of households in India, and analyzing them separately may yield results that are useful for public policy. Hence, we analyze the consumption patterns, socio-economic distribution and the household...

This paper seeks to provide a profile of social group disparities and poverty in India, where social groups are classified as scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other social groups, and examine the factors underlying differences in levels of living between these groups and for each group...