Informal finance and rural finance policy in India: historical and contemporary perspectives

From the 1950s up to the early 1990s the All-India data show an ever-declining share of informal credit in the total outstanding debt of rural households. Contemporaneous micro-level studies, using more qualitative research methodologies, provide evidence that questions the strength of this trend, and more recent All-India credit surveys show, first, a levelling, and then a rise, in the share of rural informal credit in 1990/91 and 2000/01, respectively. By reference to findings of a study of village moneylenders in Rajasthan, the paper notes lessons to be drawn. First, informal financial agents have not disappeared from the rural financial landscape in India. Second, formal-sector financial institutions can learn much about rural financial service needs from the financial products and processes of their informal counterparts. Third, a national survey of informal agents, similar to that of the 1921 Census survey of indigenous bankers and moneylenders, would provide valuable pointers towards policy options for the sector. A recent Reserve Bank of India Report on Moneylender Legislation not only explores incentive mechanisms to better ensure fair practice, but also proposes provision for a new category of loan providers that would explicitly link the rural informal and formal financial sectors

Changing patterns of informal and formal finance in a Rajasthan village

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX183300 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Terrestrial carbon storage resulting from CO2 and nitrogen fertilization in temperate grasslands.

A temperate grassland model has been used to simulate carbon sequestration under various environmental conditions. The results suggest that the CO2 and nitrogen fertilization that has occurred may contribute appreciably to the so-called missing carbon sink, which it has been suggested must exist to balance the global carbon budget