Finance

Less developed countries often have underdeveloped and inefficient financial markets, implying that resource allocation is suboptimal. Dysfunctional financial markets may also be associated with less willingness to invest on profitable yet risky assets. The finance programme investigates such issues.

There is a high research demand on these issues. For instance, the government of Bihar has raised a shortage of agricultural credit as one of their key policy concerns, and the governments of Pakistan and Ghana are keen to develop their banking and finance sector.

The finance programme also addresses the issues of household risk management and the impact of financial access for the poor. The impact of micro-finance and the implications of its various designs, therefore, are also relevant topics. For its methodology, a large fraction of the research under the finance programme will make use of the growing expertise in randomised interventions.