Financial social innovation to engage the economically marginalized: insights from an Indian case study

Abstract

New sources of finance within the label of ‘impact investing’ have emerged as mechanisms to promote entrepreneurship within marginalized communities. Different vehicles for impact investment have emerged over the years; however, our understanding around their emergence, configuration and adoption is limited. Hence, the main purpose in this research is to study the role of the contextual drivers and conditions that gave rise to a unique form of impact investment in India, a financial social innovation – developmental venture capital (DVC). Through the lens of capital theories, insights from the case of India’s largest and oldest DVC firm along with three of its most prominent investees are presented. Findings highlight that the social entrepreneurs behind the case DVC wholly re-conceptualized silicon valley-style venture capital financing to suit small brick and mortar investments in rural India, developed mechanisms for deploying funding frugally, and created partnerships of equals between themselves and their investees. Investee founders leveraged human and social capital throughout the social innovation process via deep immersion in the socio-cultural milieu of India.     

Institutional framework and public enterprise performance

The purpose of this paper is to derive, on the basis of available literature on successful enterprises, some conjectures-tentative generalizations — with regard to the strategic factors and in particular the characteristics of the decision structure and processes that account for good public enterprise performance in the mining and manufacturing sector. Section 2 deals with the decision framework, and Section 3, with the motivational and inducement mechanisms. The impact of distributional pressures on decision making is discussed in Section 4 and the role of ideology, in Section 5. Some concluding observations are made in Section 6.     

SAVING AND FLOW OF FUNDS ANALYSIS: A TOOL FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING IN INDIA*

Overall balance between expected available resources and planned investment is not sufficient to ensure development with stability. Imbalances and inflationary pressures could develop as a result of inconsistencies between sector-wise investment structure and the sector-wise structure of saving. This means that the dichotomy between real and financial planning needs to be eliminated not only at the national level but at the sectoral levels as well, so that the sector-wise investment pattern is consistent with the emerging structure of saving and the flow-of-funds. This presents an analysis of the structure of saving and flow-of-funds in India, shows how it is actually used for the purpose of financial planning, and attempts to derive a formalized technique of financial planning. Analysis of the structure of saving in India during 1954–1955 to 1967–1968 indicates the importance of the household sector as the net lending sector to the borrowing sectors, the government and the private corporate sectors. On the basis of the feasible sectoral rates of growth in income and the past trends in sectoral saving-income ratios and household saving pattern with such modifications as are necessary in the light of expected changes in various policies, sector-wise saving structure and the pattern of household sector saving are projected for the Fourth Plan period (1969–1974). Then a flow-of-funds matrix is prepared to derive sector-wise investment estimates as are consistent with the estimated structure of saving and the likely changes in the lending policies of the financial institutions. A formalized technique of financial planning based on the Indian planning experience is presented in the last section of the paper.     

Estimating Excess Sensitivity and Habit Persistence in Consumption Using Greenbook Forecasts

In this paper, we revisit the issue of excess sensitivity of consumption to income and address the weak instrument problem that is well documented in this literature. Using quarterly data for the US economy, we first highlight the weak instrument problem by showing that the use of conventional instruments tends to overestimate the share of rule-of-thumb consumers. To address this weak instrument problem, we propose a new instrument for endogenous disposable income growth in the consumption function, namely, the Greenbook forecast of real disposable income growth. We show that this instrument encompasses the information contained in the conventional set of instruments, and is a superior predictor of income growth. We find that using our proposed instrument ameliorates the weak instrument problem and provides a much smaller estimate for the rule-of-thumb consumers. We also extend our empirical framework to allow for habit persistence and provide an estimate for this important parameter of the consumption function. Finally, we use a time-varying specification of consumption function that allows for endogenous regressors, and document a decline in the share of rule-of-thumb consumers and a rise in the habit-persistence parameter in the US over our sample period.     

Measuring service fairness and its impact on service quality and satisfaction: a study of Indian Banking Services

As very few studies have investigated banking services from fairness perspective and none of the studies have attempted to measure service fairness in Indian retail banking services context, the paper seeks to investigate service fairness in Indian retail banking services context. It attempts to validate the existing four-dimensional service fairness scale and investigates its applicability in the retail banking industry. The conceptual model depicting the relationship between service fairness, service quality and customer satisfaction was tested using SEM. The results established reliability and validity of the scale and the impact of service fairness on service quality and customer satisfaction. The impact of individual fairness dimensions on these two customer evaluation variables is also studied. The paper discusses important implications of the findings and presents valuable insights for the practitioners as well as academia.     

TOUGH LOVE AND INTERGENERATIONAL ALTRUISM*

This article develops and studies a tough love model of intergenerational altruism. We model tough love by modifying the Barro‐Becker standard altruism model in two ways. First, the child’s discount factor is endogenously determined, so lower childhood consumption leads to a higher discount factor later in life. Second, the parent evaluates the child’s lifetime utility with a constant high discount factor. Our model predicts that parental transfers will fall when the child’s discount factor falls. This is in contrast with the standard altruism model, which predicts that parental transfers are independent of exogenous changes in the child’s discount factor.     

Isolated gastric varices: Ultrasound detection

Isolated gastric varices (IGV) (resulting from varying etiologies) were diagnosed in six patients using ultrasound examination of the wall of the fluid-filled stomach. Small gastric varices are seen as circular or linear anechoic channels within the gastric wall without a significant intraluminal projection. Large varices are seen as anechoic, lobulated “bulging masses” projecting into the fluid-filled lumen of the stomach. Doppler technique assists in confirming the vascular nature of these lesions and thus avoids confusion with other hypoanechoic lesions of the gastric wall. The technique is simple, noninvasive, and extremely useful in diagnosing IGV in patients investigated for recurrent undiagnosed gastrointestinal bleeding.     

Red price? Red flag! Eye-tracking reveals how one red price can hurt a retailer

Retailers present prices in red color to signal savings. Past research has shown that presenting all prices in red increases perceived savings from the store. However, in practice, retailers often present just one price in red in promotion materials with multiple prices. Will consumers perceive higher savings from the store even if only one price is presented in red? This research examines this prevalent retail practice using a theoretical lens. The theoretical framework predicts that two unique learned associations with red color (red: Savings and red: Stop) play a key role in shaping consumers' perception of savings from stores that highlight only one price in red. This research proposes and empirically demonstrates that consumers perceive lower savings from stores that present only one price in red. The theoretical framework is validated using a multi-method approach that combines the strengths of behavioral and physiological (eye-tracking) methods. Findings from this research suggest that presenting only one price in red lowers perceived savings from the store, which may hurt sales.