Research

My research agenda is centred around economic questions related to rural dynamics in developing countries, particularly financial behaviour, labour and cognition of households in rural South India. The methods I use are determined by the research questions that arise but revolve around rigorous statistical analysis (e.g., econometrics, machine learning). I attach great importance to the quality of the data used, and in the interests of transparency and respect for ethical principles, all the R and Stata scripts developed to conduct the statistical and econometric analyses of my research work are freely accessible here.

Publications in peer-reviewed journals

  1. Surviving Debt, Survival Debt in Times of Lockdown. Economic & Political Weekly, 57(1), 41–49, with I. Guérin, S. Michiels, C.J. Nordman, & G. Venkatasubramanian, G. (2022). Full article available here.
  2. Locus of Control, Social Identity, and Indebtedness in South India. Revue d’Économie du Développement, 31(2-3), 95-101, with C.J. Nordman. (2022). DOI: 10.3917/edd.362.0095

Working papers

  1. Ten years of labour, migration and debt in India: Insights from original longitudinal household surveys in Tamil Nadu, with M. Di Santolo, I. Guérin, S. Michiels, C. Mouchel, C.J. Nordman & G. Venkatasubramanian.

In progress

  1. The Political and Sexual Economies of Marriages: Two Decades of change in South-Arcot, South India, with I. Guérin, C.J. Nordman & G. Venkatasubramanian.
  2. Individual Debt Traps: Insights from Rural Tamil Nadu.
  3. Hard Times: Measure and Analysis of Household’s Financial Vulnerability in Rural South India.
  4. She Works Hard for the Money: Financial Vulnerability and Labour Supply in Rural South India.
  5. A Change is Gonna Come: Measures and Stability of Personality Traits in Rural South India, with C.J. Nordman.
  6. Psychology of Debt in Rural South India, with C.J. Nordman.

Policy briefs

  1. Why and how to measure household debt in informal economies?, ODRIIS Policy brief No. 1, with I. Guérin & G. Venkatasubramanian. (2024). IRD, IFP, and ODRIIS.

Technical reports

  1. RUME (2010) Survey Manual, Tech. rep. No. hal-04153130, with I. Guérin, G. Venkatasubramanian, S. Michiels, & M. Roesch. (2023). IRD, IFP, and ODRIIS.
  2. How to handle personality traits and cognitive skills variables in the NEEMSIS-1 (2016-17) survey wave?, NEEMSIS technical note No. 2, with A. Hilger. (2023). IRD, IFP, and ODRIIS.
  3. RUME-NEEMSIS survey: How to Handle Panel Data?, NEEMSIS technical note No. 1. (2023). IRD, IFP, and ODRIIS.
  4. NEEMSIS-2 Survey Manual, Tech. rep. No. hal-04207258, with C. J. Nordman, G. Venkatasubramanian, I. Guérin, S. Michiels, C. Mouchel, & M. Di Santolo. (2021). IRD, IFP, and ODRIIS.

Data

  1. NEEMSIS-1 wave data, with C. J. Nordman, I. Guérin, G. Venkatasubramanian, S. Michiels, Y. Lanos, A. Hilger, S. Kumar, & A. Raj. (2023). Harvard Dataverse. DOI: 10.7910/DVN/KN3KFJ
  2. RUME survey data, with I. Guérin, G. Venkatasubramanian, S. Michiels, & M. Roesch. (2023). Harvard Dataverse. DOI: 10.7910/DVN/2KVFXG

Created with the distill package and RStudio. Freely hosted on .
Author: Arnaud Natal. Last updated on January, 2024.