‘They will go to die there, where there is life ’. COVID-19 lockdown flooded streets with migrant labourers which were marching to their villages to find warmth and empathy. Many reached their homes but several failed and died on streets and railway tracks. The current study offers insights...

In this paper, we study the causal impact of the intensity of mobile phone use on female labor force participation in India. Using data from a large representative household survey, we employ an instrumental variable approach to estimate this causal impact. We decompose the intensity of mobile...

This paper demonstrates that India’s early 2000s mobile phone service expansion, or the “telecom boom” led to net rural-urban migration of about 13 million individuals out of which 4 million moved for employment. To estimate the effects, we exploit the heterogeneous expansion of telecom...

The paper conducts a detailed examination of the existing evaluative frameworks for microfinance institutions to gauge the differences and similarities. Efficiency evaluates how MFIs are meeting the performance standards considering time and budget constraints. Outreach evaluates the...