I.Research Statement
A brief account of the present research programme and its adjacent commitments.
My research examines the microeconomics of household credit in low-income settings, with a particular focus on the role that gender and informal institutions play in the price and availability of credit. I am most interested in the cases in which the formal financial sector fails to reach the household, and in which informal or kin-based lending fills the gap — imperfectly, and often on terms that are difficult to dislodge by subsequent interventions.
I combine field experiments with structural modelling and long-panel household data. I currently direct two multi-year randomised trials — one in Bihar on movable-collateral registries and one in Ethiopia on commitment-savings — and maintain a three-wave longitudinal household panel (the RHCP) that has tracked 3,200 households since 2021. I teach one doctoral and one masters course per year, and supervise four PhD and eleven MPhil students.
IV
journal articles
USD 1.2M
external grants
XI
PhD / MPhil advisees
II
active RCTs
II.Academic Appointments
Positions held, in reverse chronological order. Affiliations only; visiting appointments listed separately.
2021 – PresentNew Delhi
Assistant Professor of Economics
Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
Research programme on the microeconomics of household credit in rural North India. Director of the Rural Household Credit Panel (RHCP), a longitudinal study across four districts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh with three enumeration waves to date. Co-PI on two externally funded randomised trials. Teaching load: two courses per year, principally Development Economics (doctoral) and Microeconomic Theory II (masters).
2019 – 2021Oxford, UK
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford
Two-year postdoctoral position supervised by Professor Stefan Dercon. Work on credit-rationing in Ethiopian smallholder agriculture under the Gates Foundation ATAI initiative. Fieldwork across three regions totalling 14 months; authored the baseline report adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture. Two papers from this period currently in revision at the JDE and World Development.
2015 – 2017Chennai / New Delhi
Pre-doctoral Research Associate
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia
Research associate on Professor Rohini Pande and Professor Esther Duflo's Bihar micro-credit replication. Coordinated field operations across 112 villages; managed a team of 28 surveyors; co-authored the final evaluation report. Work acknowledged in the subsequent NBER working paper w24329.
Summer 2023Bengaluru
Visiting Assistant Professor
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Three-month visiting appointment in the Centre for Public Policy. Delivered the executive-education short course on Evidence-Based Policy Evaluation to a cohort of 42 senior civil servants, and co-convened the annual CPP development workshop with Professor Deepak Malghan.
III.Selected Publications
Peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. Full list maintained separately at the ORCID record above.
Gender, Collateral, and the Cost of Informal Credit: Evidence from Rural North India
Sharma, R. (2024). Journal of Development Economics, 168, 103215
Uses a three-wave household panel across 84 villages in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to document a substantial gender gap in the informal interest rate faced by borrowers, even after controlling for loan purpose and repayment history. Shows that the gap is closed entirely when women can pledge movable collateral, and provides a structural explanation based on a screening model with asymmetric information.
Microfinance at Scale: A Replication of the Bihar RCT, Ten Years On
Sharma, R., Pande, R. & Duflo, E. (2023). NBER Working Paper 31104
A ten-year follow-up of the Bihar microfinance randomised trial. Finds that the short-run null effect on consumption documented in Banerjee et al. (2015) reverses in the long run, driven by a compositional change in the treatment sample. Presented at the 2023 NEUDC and the NBER Summer Institute.
Credit, Commitment, and the Household: A Field Experiment in Ethiopia
Sharma, R. & Dercon, S. (2022). World Development, 157, 105964
A randomised evaluation of a commitment-savings product linked to agricultural credit among 2,400 smallholder households in three Ethiopian regions. Documents a 14-percentage-point increase in seasonal input use in the treatment arm and a statistically indistinguishable effect on downstream yields at endline.
Informal Finance and the Gender Composition of the Self-Employed
Sharma, R. (2021). Journal of the European Economic Association, 19(4), 1920–1967
Establishes a new stylised fact — the over-representation of women among own-account workers in informal credit markets across South Asia — and offers a model in which search frictions and household bargaining jointly determine the gender composition of the self-employed. Theory paper with calibration against the India Human Development Survey.
IV.Grants & Awards
External funding and prizes. Only externally reviewed awards are listed.
2024
Movable Collateral and Gender in Rural CreditDFID / FCDO · Sole PI
GBP 480,000
2023
Long-run Effects of Microfinance at ScaleInternational Growth Centre · Co-PI with R. Pande
USD 240,000
2022
Rural Household Credit PanelNCAER · Principal Investigator
INR 1.80 crore
2021
Early-Career Research AwardScience and Engineering Research Board, DST
INR 1.20 crore
2019
Royal Economic Society PhD PrizeRoyal Economic Society · Thesis of the Year
GBP 3,000
V.Teaching
Courses taught as sole instructor, with course code and term; core courses only.
ECON 901
Development Economics (Doctoral)Doctoral · 14 enrolled
Monsoon 2025
ECON 612
Microeconomic Theory IIMasters · 48 enrolled
Winter 2024
ECON 714
Applied MicroeconometricsMasters · 36 enrolled
Monsoon 2023
CPP 451
Evidence-Based Policy Evaluation (IIMB)Executive · 42 enrolled
Summer 2023
ECON 302
Intermediate Microeconomics (Honours)Undergrad · 120 enrolled
Monsoon 2022
VI.Talks & Invited Seminars
Invited and plenary addresses from the last five years. Contributed talks omitted.
2025
Gender, Collateral, and the Cost of Informal CreditNEUDC Annual Meetings · Brown University
Plenary
2024
Long-Run Effects of Microfinance at ScaleNBER Summer Institute · Cambridge MA
Invited
2024
The Rural Household Credit Panel: Design and First ResultsCESifo Area Conference on Development
Keynote
2023
Screening and Gender in Informal Credit MarketsRoyal Economic Society Annual Conference
Invited
2022
Commitment Savings and Smallholder AgricultureBREAD / World Bank ABCDE Conference
Invited
VII.Professional Service
Editorial boards, programme-committee service, and selected review work.
2024 – present
Associate EditorJournal of Development Economics
current
2023 – present
Editorial Board MemberIndian Economic Review
current
2022 – present
AffiliateJ-PAL South Asia · NCAER
current
2021 – 2024
Programme CommitteeNorth East Universities Development Consortium
served
2020 – present
RefereeAER · QJE · AEJ:A · JDE · JEEA · RESTUD
active
VIII.Education
Degrees in reverse chronological order, with advisor where relevant.
2019
Ph.D. Economics
London School of Economics
Advisors: Prof. Oriana Bandiera and Prof. Maitreesh Ghatak · Royal Economic Society PhD Prize, Thesis of the Year
2014
M.Phil. Economics
Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics
First class with distinction · Gold Medal · NET-JRF qualifier
VIIIbis.Areas of Competence
Research methods and technical competencies, with an honest self-assessment of depth.
Randomised evaluationStructural estimationStata · R · JuliaPanel microdataHousehold surveysTheory modellingGrant writingFieldwork in Hindi / UrduPhD supervisionProgramme evaluation
Randomised evaluationStructural estimationStata · R · JuliaPanel microdataHousehold surveysTheory modellingGrant writingFieldwork in Hindi / UrduPhD supervisionProgramme evaluation
Randomised evaluationStructural estimationStata · R · JuliaPanel microdataHousehold surveysTheory modellingGrant writingFieldwork in Hindi / UrduPhD supervisionProgramme evaluation
Randomised evaluationadv.
Structural estimationadv.
Stata · R · Juliaadv.
Panel microdataadv.
Household surveysadv.
Theory modellingadv.
Grant writingadv.
Fieldwork in Hindi / Urduadv.
PhD supervisionadv.
Programme evaluationadv.
IX.Correspondence
Electronic correspondence preferred. Post may be directed through the institutional address.
Direct the reader
electronic mail
postal
Department of Economics, DSE, University Enclave, Delhi 110007
web presence
professional network
office hours
Tue & Thu, 15:00 – 17:00 IST
languages
English · Hindi · Urdu (reading) · French (conversational) ·