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This work suggests many interesting possibilities for downstream research. For example, one can study the

differences in borrowing patterns between households with different income and wealth profiles, as well as
the correlation between sources and purpose of borrowing. It will also be possible to evaluate whether
income transfers from the government led to a fall in the number of borrower households. Similarly, one
can ask whether different health outcomes play a role in their borrowing outcomes.

The number of households choosing to borrow has been different from what happened after
demonetisation. There may be several reasons for this - the magnitude of the disruption, the length of time

for which it lasted, the possibility of more permanent impacts on labour markets among others. This leaves
us with interesting research possibilities to understand household behaviour and their interaction with
financial markets.

References

Ashwini Deshpande (2020), The Covid-19 Pandemic and Lockdown: First Effects on Gender Gaps in
Employment and Domestic Work in India, Working Paper 30, Ashoka University.
Azim Premji University (2019), "State of Working India 2019", Technical Report, Centre for Sustainable
Employment.
Kaivan Munshi (2014), "Community Networks and the Process of Development", Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 28(4), pp: 49-76.
Kenneth Lee, Harshil Sahai, Patrick Baylis, and Michael Greenstone (2020), "Job Loss and Behavioral Change:

The Unprecedented Effects of the India Lockdown in Delhi", Working Paper, EPIC India.
Marianne Bertrand, Kaushik Krishnan, and Heather Schofield (2020), "How are Indian households coping
under the COVID-19 lockdown? 8 key findings", Rustandy Centre for Social Sector Innovation, Chicago
Booth.
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha (2020), "The covid shock could alter people's financial priorities", Livemint, 5 May

2020.
Sagar Wadhwa (2019), "Impact of demonetization on household consumption in India, Working paper.
Subhamoy Chakraborty and Renuka Sane (2019), "Household debt over time", The Leap Blog, 24 May 2019.
Sudipto Karmarkar and Abhinav Narayanan (2020), "Do households care about cash? Exploring the
heterogeneous effects of India's demonetization", Journal of Asian Economics, 69.

Sane is a researcher at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Shah is an independent scholar.
We thank four anonymous referees, Kaushik Krishnan, Radhika Pandey and Anjali Sharma for useful
comments.

(Republished from The Leap Blog)

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