Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is the largest and most ambitious public works program for poverty alleviation, adopted by Government of India since independence. It was implemented in year 2006, starting with the first phase of 200 most backward districts in...

Prior research suggests that trust plays an important role for individuals' participation in stock markets. This paper focuses on potential customers in retail banking markets and empirically investigates their trust in foreign banks and domestic banks. Using a large survey on savings patterns...

Prior research suggests that trust plays an important role in an individual's decision to participate in stock markets. This paper focuses on potential customers in retail banking markets and empirically investigates their trust in foreign banks and domestic banks. Using a large survey on the...

Penang has always been a focal point, absorbing knowledge (and popular culture) from civilizations to the East and West. In modern Penang the pattern of cultural contacts has changed over time. Research institutes and universities in Penang cooperate with foreign partners to produce research...

This paper tests for ex ante and ex post labor supply responses to weather risk for rural Indian farm households. The analysis uses panel data on 2115 households spanning 13 states in rural India, merged with a 22-year series of district-level rainfall data. Ex ante, households facing riskier...

Financial inclusion is the process of building viable institutions that provide financial services to those hitherto excluded. These may include savings, insurances, remittances, and credit. Microfinance became the most dominant method for achieving financial inclusion. However, different...

The financial inclusion is a crucial element in the fight against poverty. The ability to take effective decisions regarding the use and management of money with required informed judgments is financial literacy. It enables a person to understand the importance of savings and thus regarded as an...

We investigate the effect of kinship between borrowers and cosigners on repayment performance in microcredit, by using data coming from a leading Italian microfinance provider for the period 2009-2012. Estimates on a pool of 2,350 loans show that the presence of closely related cosigners tends...