Social Networks and Financial Inclusion in India

Last registered on March 03, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social Networks and Financial Inclusion in India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015451
Initial registration date
February 27, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 03, 2025, 8:22 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
India
Region
Jharkhand

Primary Investigator

Name
Vidhi Shah
Affiliation
USC Marshall School of Business
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jeevant Rampal
PI Affiliation
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Anindya Chakrabarti
PI Affiliation
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Abhishek Tripathy
PI Affiliation
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-02-28
End date
2025-10-30
Keywords
Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Households living around the poverty line in rural India have limited engagement with formal financial institutions and services. In order to ensure financial inclusion of such households, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandates several non-profit organizations to conduct financial literacy interventions across villages in India.

We examine the impact of these RBI-mandated financial literacy interventions on the financial attitudes, awareness, and behaviors of households around the poverty line in India. We also examine the effectiveness of such interventions when they are modified to include the reinforcement of certain information by two types of peers in villages' social networks: communication-central and financially influential. Our key research question is to identify how these interventions compare in terms of their impact on households' financial attitudes, awareness, and behaviors.

In addition to this, we examine the consumption smoothing behaviors of households around the poverty line. We also capture village-level networks of communication and financial influence, and study how these networks change as a result of such interventions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Chakrabarti, Anindya et al. 2025. "Social Networks and Financial Inclusion in India." AEA RCT Registry. March 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15451-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2025-03-30
Intervention End Date
2025-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We examine the effect of various financial inclusion interventions on the key dependent variables of financial attitudes, awareness, and behaviors of households living around the poverty line in rural India. Our unit of observation is a single household.

The dependent variables will be captured pre- and post-intervention using survey questions about the household's knowledge of available financial products (awareness), beliefs about products offered (attitudes), and adoption decisions (behaviors).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
As part of the pre- and post-intervention surveys, we map communication networks in a village and capture households' beliefs about the financial influence of peers. We examine changes in beliefs and network structure as a secondary outcome of interest. In addition to this, we also survey financial behaviors of households when preparing for unexpected future income shocks.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
To examine the effects of various types of financial literacy interventions, we conduct a pre-interventions survey to capture households' baseline financial attitudes, awareness, and behaviors. Villages are randomly assigned to treatments comprising different types of financial inclusion interventions, such that all households in a given village undergo the same treatment. After this, we conduct a post-intervention survey of households and capture financial attitudes, awareness, and behaviors. We examine if these variables change to measure the impact of various types of financial inclusion interventions.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Villages are randomly assigned to treatment groups or a control group, via randomization by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization takes place at the village level. Villages are randomly assigned to either a control group or to one of three treatment groups.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
5 villages per cluster (that is, 5 villages are assigned to a condition), 4 clusters (conditions) in total.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Approximately 2000 households (~100 households surveyed per village, across 20 villages).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
- 5 villages in control
- 5 villages in Treatment 1 (standard financial literacy training by non-profit organization)
- 5 villages in Treatment 2 (standard financial literacy training by non-profit organization and reinforcement of information by a communication-central peer)
- 5 villages in Treatment 3 (standard financial literacy training by non-profit organization and reinforcement of information by a financially influential peer)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institutional Review Board, Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad)
IRB Approval Date
2025-02-27
IRB Approval Number
IIMA IRB 2025-05
Analysis Plan