Esther Duflo

Social Networks and Microfinance

An NSF-Funded Project Led By Abhijit Banerjee, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo and Matthew Jackson

We collected data on social networks in 75 villages in rural southern Karnataka, India located within 2 to 3 hours driving distance from Bangalore, the state's capital and India's software hub. This page contains research that has been produced from this data along with the data itself. A census of households was conducted, and a subset of individuals was asked detailed questions about the relationships they had with others in the village. This information was used to create network graphs for each village, included here. Basic information for all households and all surveyed individuals is also provided.

Previously, these 75 villages had been identified by Bharatha Swamukti Samsthe (a microfinance institution) as places where it planned to start operations. Six months after the survey, BSS began expanding to these villages and in two years eventually spread to 43 of them. Information about which households participated in BSS's microfinance program was matched to the household census. We study the diffusion of microfinance throughout these villages.

Several papers have made use of the rich network data, including theoretical work, econometric work, and lab experiments in the field that shed light on the role of networks on behavior. Specifically, the data provided a unique opportunity to have people who vary in the extent of their day-to-day interactions play experimental games with each other so that their behavior in diverse economic environments could be studied.

On this page you will find the papers and the data for downloading. Feel free to use the data. It comes as is, so we are not promising to support you if you have questions.

Working Papers

The Diffusion of Microfinance
August 2011
Abhijit Banerjee, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O. Jackson

Social Capital and Social Quilts: Network Patterns of Favor Exchange, Forthcoming, American Economic Review
August 2011
Matthew O. Jackson, Tomas Rodriguez-Barraquer, and Xu Tan

Informal Insurance, Social Networks, and Savings Access: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in the Field
August 2011
Arun G. Chandrasekhar,Cynthia Kinnan, and Horacio Larreguy

Mobilizing Investment Through Social Networks: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in the Field
August 2011
Emily Breza, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, and Horacio Larreguy

Econometrics of Sampled Networks
November 2011
Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Randall Lewis

Information, Networks and Informal Insurance: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in the Field
August 2011
Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Cynthia Kinnan, and Horacio Larreguy

Testing Models of Social Learning on Networks: Evidence from a Framed Field Experiment
July 2011
Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Horacio Larreguy, and Juan Pablo Xandri

Social Networks Data

These folders contain data from a survey of social networks in 75 villages in rural southern Karnataka, a state in India. A census of households was conducted, and a subset of individuals was asked detailed questions about the relationships they had with others in the village. This information was used to create network graphs for each village, included here. Basic information for all households and all surveyed individuals is also provided.

Previously, these 75 villages had been identified by Bharatha Swamukti Samsthe (a microfinance institution) as places where it planned to start operations. Six months after the survey, BSS began operating in these villages and two years later, had spread to 43 of them. Information about which households participated in BSS's microfinance program was matched to the household census.

There are three folders in this package:

1. "Network Data" contains matrices describing the relationship between individuals and households in each village.

2. "Demographics and Outcomes" contains demographic information for household and individuals. It also contains data on which households participated in BSS's program.

3. "Survey Instruments" has copies of the surveys that were administered.

Download Data Here, Updated August 2011