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This paper examines whether farmers' knowledge of the minimum support prices (MSPs) affects farm-gate prices. MSP is the minimum guaranteed price for agricultural commodities announced by the Government of India for 24 commodities. Most farmers in India prefer to sell their produce at the farm-gate due to a small marketable surplus and hence do not directly benefit from MSP. The authors test the common argument in the political discourse that if farmers have knowledge of MSP, then they can bargain with traders during the farm-gate transaction and demand a better price close to MSP.

The authors use matching methods to examine the impact of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices.

Using nationally representative data, the authors show that there is no empirical evidence that the knowledge of MSP of the crops leads to higher bargaining power and better farm-gate prices.

Price information (MSP in this case) alone cannot improve the bargaining power of farmers and result in a better price realization. As a safety net, MSP fails in the absence of procurement of products by the government. This also raises the question of the equitability of the price support system in India and calls for a rethink of the MSP policy.

This study is the first of its kind to examine the anchoring effect of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices using a nationally representative dataset.

The Million Farmers School (MFS) program—also known as Kisan Pathshala was launched to impart training to the farmers by the government of the state of Uttar Pradesh (India) in December 2017. This study estimates the impact of training on agricultural knowledge of the farmers.

The study is based on household survey conducted in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, during March–May 2019. The authors employed matching methods, the two-stage least square (2SLS)-residual and endogenous switching regression approaches to control for selection bias and endogeneity.

The results suggest that knowledge outcomes are significantly better among participants vis-à-vis non-participants. The results are robust to different model specifications. Further, the benefits are observed across different regions and social groups.

The MFS program can go a long way in enhancing agricultural know-how and the farmers' economic well-being, bringing a transformative change in the agricultural landscape of UP.

This study is based on a field survey data and analyzes various aspects of the program's impact, design and implementation, and offers implementation advice for greater efficacy in future.

This study aims to explore the factors influencing the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers’ adoption and usage intention towards mobile payment (m-payment) to achieve financial inclusion and sustainable development goals.

A qualitative research design is used to explore the enablers and inhibitors that influence BOP consumers’ m-payment adoption and usage intention. To collect the qualitative responses, semi-structured in-depth interviews with BOP respondents were conducted. The thematic analysis using the text mining technique will be used to analyse qualitative data for exploring the predominant factors affecting m-payment adoption intention and usage.

The results suggested awareness, social influences and self-efficacy as crucial enablers and privacy and security risks and vulnerability concerns as crucial inhibitors towards m-payment adoption and usage.

As a novel contribution to the BOP, financial inclusion, sustainable development goals and m-payment literature, this study unfolds several unknown perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices that influence the BOP consumers’ m-payment adoption intention and usage. The study’s findings help the government and banks formulate and implement strategies to achieve financial inclusion among BOP consumers.

This research intends to develop a conceptual framework investigating how IT-related resources, namely IT advancement (ITAD) and IT alignment (ITAG), utilization relates to digital marketing capabilities (DMCs) development, which in turn improves business performance (BP), as well as how digital orientation (DO) and technological turbulence (TT) moderate these effects.

This study employs an online email-based survey technique to collect primary cross-sectional data from 388 small and medium-sized enterprises operating in India. Moderated hierarchical regression was used to validate the hypothesized relationships.

ITAD and ITAG are significant drivers of DMCs, and these capabilities positively influence BP. Moreover, DO strengthens the positive effect of ITAD and ITAG on DMCs, with ITAD having a higher impact than ITAG. Similarly, DMCs have a greater positive effect on BP in an environment with high TT.

Despite increased interest in the information technology resources required for the development of DMCs, less attention has been paid to the relationship between ITAD and ITAG resources and DMCs. In addition, few researchers investigate the moderating influence of DO on the relationship between IT-related resources and DMCs, as well as TT on the association between DMCs and BP.

This study aims to examine the factors influencing user satisfaction with unified payment interface (UPI)-based payment systems during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The study also aimed to examine whether the user satisfaction with UPI-based payment systems during the COVID-19 pandemic will transform into their continuance intention post-COVID-19 pandemic.

The study was performed in three phases, i.e. pre-testing (for developing questionnaire), pilot study (using exploratory factor analysis to ensure unidimensionality) and the main study. The main study was based on the feedback from a sample of 369 internet users who first used the UPI-based payment system during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data generated were analysed using the structural equation modelling approach.

The study findings suggest that the users who are satisfied with UPI-based transactions during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to continue their use of this payment mode in future. Factors such as post-adoption perceived value, perceived usefulness and post-adoption perceived risk were observed to be key constructs in explaining user satisfaction and continued intention for UPI-based payment systems.

The study is one of the pioneering studies, in the sense that it investigated the continuance intention of UPI-based payment systems, which, surprisingly, did not gain much attention from past researchers.

Covid-19 sparked new interest in consumer financial resilience (CFR) amongst regulatory authorities, financial institutions, policymakers and the academia. No financial and health crisis has been worse than Covid-19, erasing the growth momentum of nations at all development stages. This study measures consumers' current financial resilience and future expectations within India's emerging market and its likely response to policy measures.

CFR is investigated using individual household data on economic state, employment, income and savings from the Reserve Bank of India's consumer confidence survey. The empirical approach is based on the temporal time-series data with mixed frequency regression. Consumers' current and future expectation indices appear as the regressand, whereas credit-deposit ratio, credit outstanding, number of bank accounts and digital transactions act as main regressors.

The response of consumers' current situation is 3.50 times higher than that of their future expectations. This implies that a rise in the credit-deposit ratio and credit line positively affects CFR. In contrast, a higher number of bank accounts, a proxy for financial inclusion, adversely affect consumer's well-being possibly owing to the government's failure to provide financial support through banking networks. Digital payments (value) positively affect consumers' current situation and future expectations.

The results of this study inform policy formulation for enhancing financial resilience. Consumer sentiment index acts as a proxy for CFR.

Financial resilience is a concern for policymakers. This study is one of the first studies linking CFR with financial inclusion, credit creation and digital financial capability.

The objective of this study is to ascertain the financial literacy (FL) of the farmers in three South Asian economies (India, Bangladesh and Pakistan). Further, an effort was made to explore various demographic and socioeconomic antecedents of FL of the farmers.

The study used secondary data of 11,025, 782 and 657 farmers from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively from Financial Inclusion Insights (2017) database. “Big five” FL questions were used to measure the FL of the farmers. Appropriate statistical techniques and censored Tobit regression were used to identify the determinants of such FL.

Bangladeshi farmers (48.75%: Moderate) were found to exhibit greater FL as compared to Pakistani (38.96%: Poor) and Indian (32.61%: Poor) farmers. The outcome of the study revealed that the farm ownership and educational attainment of the farmers significantly determined FL of the farmers in all three Asian countries. Financial confidence and gender were observed to exacerbate a positive influence on the level of FL of farmers belonging to India and Pakistan. Age, marital status, financial inclusion and economic status were found to be the major determinants of FL of Indian farmers.

There is a dearth of studies in the scholarship examining the FL of farmers in both developed and developing economies. The present study makes an original contribution to the literature by unearthing FL amongst farmers and its determinants in three South Asian economies using a large sample of 12,464 farmers for the first time.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0776

Credit is an essential element in the production process in agriculture. There are two sources from which farm households can access credit: institutional sources and non-institutional or informal sources of credit. The informal sources of credit, such as moneylenders, charge exorbitant rates of interest, which further puts a financial burden on the farmers. Hence, to increase the flow of credit from institutional sources, a policy known as the interest subvention scheme (ISS) was introduced in the year 2006. This paper aims to find the effect of the ISS on the behaviour of farm households.

The author has used difference-in-difference analysis for estimation. In the analysis, the author has taken Madhya Pradesh as the treatment state and Andhra Pradesh as the controlled state. The author has used the Village Dynamics in South Asia (VDSA) dataset of ICRISAT for analysis. The author has used data from 2009 to 2014 for the two states.

The author has found that the difference between the average interest rate of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh is significant for both pre-treatment and post-treatment periods and this gap has increased after the intervention period. The results suggest that the share of informal sector borrowings has reduced in the treatment group (Madhya Pradesh) as compared to the control group (Andhra Pradesh) in the post-treatment period.

This paper is particularly important because of the dearth of literature on the impact of this scheme in India and may shed light on the much-needed policy implications of this particular policy.

The study aims to explore the savings behaviour of Indian farmers. An attempt is also made to inspect the effect of financial literacy (FL) and financial confidence (FC) on the savings behaviour of the farmers in India.

This study used secondary data on 10,263 Indian farmers from Financial Inclusion Insights, 2017 database. Relevant statistical techniques and ordered probit regression were used to unfold the effect of FL and FC on the savings behaviour of farmers.

The outcome of the study revealed that the majority of the Indian farmers exhibited poor levels of FL and FC. Of the total, 42.99% were found to save regularly. FL and FC were observed to play instrumental roles in steering the savings behaviour of the Indian farmers. Household size, financial shocks, gender, farm ownership, income, household financial decision-making process, religion and educational attainment have emerged to be significant predictors of the savings behaviour of Indian farmers.

The present study makes an original contribution to the extant literature by unfolding the savings behaviour of Indian farmers and the effect of FL and FC on such behaviour using a rich sample of 10,263 farmers for the first time.

This study investigates the effect of intellectual capital (IC) and its components on the technical efficiency of Indian commercial banks after controlling the influence of bank-specific and macroeconomic variables.

The study selects a sample of 37 listed Indian commercial banks from 2005 to 2019 and uses the two-step data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Banks' technical efficiency scores are first estimated, while the relationship between IC and technical efficiency is examined in the second stage using the panel data Tobit model.

This study's findings suggest a fluctuating trend in the technical efficiency of Indian banks. Notably, from 2015 onwards, a declining technical efficiency trend is observed for all banks. However, private-sector banks outperform public-sector banks in terms of technical efficiency. This study's regression analysis indicates a positive relationship between IC and banks' technical efficiency scores. Further, by decomposing IC into its components like human capital, structural capital and capital employed, the study's findings show that human capital and structural capital enhance banks' technical efficiency. Notably, capital employed reduces technical efficiency. Moreover, bank size, diversification, capitalization, net interest margin and the country's growth rate significantly drive Indian banks' efficiency. In contrast, their operating cost ratio and the country's inflation negatively influence the same.

This study makes a novel endeavor to examine the IC and bank's technical efficiency nexus in the Indian context, encompassing a period of landmark banking reforms.