| 1. |
- Bali Swain, Ranjula, 1968-, et al.
(author)
-
Does Foreign Aid Improve Gender Performance In Recipient Countries?
- 2020
-
In: Journal of International Development. - : Wiley. - 0954-1748 .- 1099-1328. ; 32:7, s. 1171-1193
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An explicit goal of foreign aid is to promote female empowerment and gender equality in developing countries. We investigate if foreign aid achieves this intended goal by examining its impact on the gender performance of recipient countries at the country level. Employing structural equation models, our results suggest that aid alone, even when targeted to directly improve gender outcomes, is unlikely to shift systemic inequalities. Aid will need to bolster civil society efforts that challenge institutional structures and norms in order to impact gender outcomes at the country level.
|
|
| 2. |
- Bali Swain, Ranjula
(author)
-
The Demand and Supply of Credit for households
- 2007
-
In: Applied Economics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0003-6846 .- 1466-4283. ; 39:21, s. 2681-2692
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The demand and supply of credit in the rural credit markets is investigated in this article using household data from India. The aim is to study the effects of household, farm productive characteristics and the policy variables on the demand and supply of credit. A type 3 Tobit model is estimated which corrects for sample selection and endogeniety bias. In addition, a generalized Double Hurdle model is estimated where the information on the household's access to credit is included to estimate the demand and supply of credit. The results suggest that the size of the operational holdings, net-wealth, dependency ratio, educational level of the household and the wages and output prices are important determinants of the demand and supply of credit for farm households. The Double Hurdle model confirms that the 'size of land owned' plays a crucial role in whether the household has access to a loan or not.
|
|
| 3. |
- Kar, Ashim, et al.
(author)
-
Interest Rates and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions : Recent Global Evidence
- 2014
-
In: European Journal of Development Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0957-8811 .- 1743-9728. ; 26:1, s. 87-106
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent controversies regarding the high interest rates being charged by the microfinance institutions (MFIs) have been justified in the name of financial sustainability. This paper investigates whether MFIs’ high interest rates improve profitability, reduce repayment rates and lead to mission-drift. Within an agency theoretic framework, instrumental variables (IV) estimations have been employed to account for the endogeneity issues using a comprehensive global panel database consisting of 379 MFIs in 71 countries for 6 years—from 2003 to 2008. Results show that real yield on loan portfolio—a frequently-used proxy for interest rates—has positive and highly significant impact on MFIs’ financial performance and loan repayment rates. We further find that loan delivery methods have a significant impact on financial performance. Individual based lenders tend to show a greater profitability but only till a certain level. We also find that individual-based lenders are more prone to mission drift as compared to village banks.
|
|
| 4. |
- Lin, Xiang, 1962-, et al.
(author)
-
Performance of negatively screened sustainable investments during crisis
- 2024
-
In: International Review of Economics and Finance. - : Elsevier. - 1059-0560 .- 1873-8036. ; 93, s. 1226-1247
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We investigate the market performance of negatively screened environment social and governance (ESG) portfolio or sustainable investments prior to and during crisis. A general and simple method is developed under the ESG Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) framework for the assessment. The novelty is that this method can be employed when the parent portfolio is not a market portfolio. In this situation, both coefficients, alpha and beta, in the reduced form of regression have special interpretations and are informative. This paper examines 24 negatively screened ESG indices from the S&P, DJSI and MSCI data across various regions, firm sizes, and criteria of screening, for 2017 to 2021. Markov Switching Autoregressive (MSAR) model is adopted to identify the crisis regime. Our results show that the negatively screened ESG indices provide positive investors’ surpluses for ESG-motivated investors during the crisis, when the corresponding parent indices are the market portfolios. For ESG investments where market portfolios are not their parent indices, half of ESG indices under consideration still provide positive surplus with similar systematic risks as their parent indices during the crisis. The remaining ESG indices under-performs but has relatively lower systematic risks, implying resilience as compared to the corresponding parent indices during the crisis. Furthermore, we demonstrate the sensitivity analysis of treating a parent index as a market portfolio.
|
|
| 5. |
- Strömberg, Per M., et al.
(author)
-
Citizen monitoring in environmental disclosure : An economics perspective
- 2024
-
In: Journal of Environmental Management. - : Elsevier. - 0301-4797 .- 1095-8630. ; 356
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Criticism is mounting that market-led and state-led initiatives for environmental impact disclosure are too limited in scope and that they rest on too strong assumptions about the quality and impartiality of monitoring and enforcement, with resulting insufficient effect on environmental sustainability. It has been proposed that citizen monitoring may contribute to counteract this void. However, to our knowledge, policy analysis in general and economics in particular has not paid much attention to this role of citizen monitoring. This paper aims to bridge that gap from an economics lens, by exploring the dynamics of disclosing local environmental impact and the potential role of citizen monitoring in environmental policy. To this end, the paper addresses monopolistic versus pluralistic environmental disclosure, letting citizen monitoring represent the latter. The study uses the mining industry as an illustrative case, because of that sector's particular transparency challenges in international value chains, typically with strong negative local environmental impact. It is shown how pluralistic information provision such as citizen monitoring can contribute to incentivizing more reliable information provision, especially in countries with weak state institutions, which is particularly important in the case of high-risk environmental impact. The findings should be of use for shaping environmental policy, providing valuable insights for both policymakers and scholars.
|
|
| 6. |
-
Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume I : Challenges and Developmen
- 2021
-
Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Economic growth and increasing population impose long-term risks to the environment and society. Approaches to address the impact of consumption and production on bio-diversity loss, resource availability, climate change, and mounting waste problems on land and in seas have yet not proven to be successful. This calls for innovative approaches to address the complex environmental, social, and economic interrelationships that have to be addressed in transforming to sustainable development. Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume I: Challenges and Development aims to explore critical global challenges and addresses how consumers, producers, the private sector, international organizations, and governments can play an active role in innovating businesses to support a transitioning towards sustainable consumption and production. The book explores different approaches and innovations to address sustainable consumption and production. It details multiple social and economic contexts to the challenges and developments towards a sustainable consumption and production. The book is of interest to economists, students, businesses, and policymakers.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Bali Swain, Ranjula
(author)
-
The Microfinance Impact
- 2012
-
Book (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Financial inclusion through microfinance has become a powerful force in improving the living conditions of poor farmers, rural non-farm enterprises and other vulnerable groups. In its unique ability to link the existing extensive network of India’s rural bank branches with the Self Help Groups (SHG), the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has covered up to 97 million poor households by March 2010 under its Self Help Group Bank Linkage Programme. Policy-makers have proclaimed SHGs as ‘‘the most potent initiative … for delivering financial services to the poor in a sustainable manner."This book presents a comprehensive scientific assessment of the impact of the Self Help Group Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP) on the member households. The book discusses wide-ranging topics, including the rural financial sector in India, the history and structure of the SBLP, the impact methodologies, the economic and social impact of microfinance, its role in building assets while reducing poverty and vulnerability, the role of women and their empowerment, training and accumulation of human capital and policy implications of lessons learned.The empirical results show that vulnerability of the more mature SHG members declines significantly. Vulnerability also falls for villages with better infrastructure and for SHGs that are formed by NGOs and linked by banks. The results strongly demonstrate that on average, there is a significant increase in the empowerment of the female participants. The economic impact of SBLP is found to be the most empowering. Greater autonomy and changes in social attitudes also lead to female empowerment. The investigation further reveals that training (especially business training) has a definite positive impact on assets but not on income. The impact of training can be improved through better infrastructure (as in paved roads), linkage model type, and the training organiser.Bridging the gap in the existing literature and between academics and practitioners, this book moves beyond the usual theoretical issues in the impact assessment literature and draws on new developments in methodology. It will be of interest to academics, development practitioners and students of economics, political science, sociology, public policy and development studies.
|
|
| 9. |
- Rampal, Priya, et al.
(author)
-
Food Security, agriculture and malnutrition in India
- 2019
-
In: Hunger and Malnutrition as major challenges of the 21st Century. - Singapore : World Scientific. - 9789813239906 - 9789813239920 ; , s. 241-265
-
Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is widely recognized that combating malnutrition for women is central not only for their own health but also for the attainment of nutritional adequacy for future generations, including infants, children and adolescents. Attaining adequate nutrition for women is necessary throughout their life, but particularly so before, during and after pregnancy, if intergenerational nutritional adequacy is to be attained. Adequacy of nutrition also helps an individual become more productive and saves medical treatment costs that may otherwise have occurred. However, India’s less than satisfactory record of female, infant and child nutrition underscores the need to take urgent steps, particularly if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be attained. With this as the background the present chapter focuses on the role of agriculture in providing adequate nutrition for women and the methods through which women in the rural sector can leverage existing institutions and programs to ameliorate nutritional inadequacy. This would require the design of informative indices of nutritional attainment and close cooperation in policy between governments, civil society organizations and international advisory groups. The chapter reviews some ways in which these can be attained.
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
