The paper explores the determinants of up-front fees on sovereign bank loans.Remuneration of bank loans is typically channelled through the floating interestbenchmark, the interest spread, and a battery of fees. There is substantial evidence of thespread paying for long-run sovereign repayment...

The National Health Insurance Scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, RSBY) aims to improve poor people’s access to quality health care in India. This paper looks at the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka, drawing on a large survey of eligible households and interviews with empanelled...

This paper investigates the traits of the self-employed entrepreneurs in urbanChina, an economy rife with informational and institutional imperfections, underdevelopedfinancial markets, but a growing and important non-state sector. The selfemployedmake on average 20% more than non-entrepreneurs,...