Ranjula Bali Swain

• Professor
• Professor at Södertörn University

Universal, ambitious, and arguably ambiguous, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are difficult to measure, monitor, prioritize and achieve. They are a multi-dimensional construct of economic, social and environmental indicators that work through complex interlinkages. We investigate these interlinkages at the SDG target level to identify...

The current high electricity prices in the European Union (EU) are in part due to the high electricity taxes. United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda with its global vision of attaining sustainable development especially seeks “to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services” (SDG 7). We investigate...

Interlinkages between the Sustainable Development Goals explores the complex relationships between the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by 193 United Nations Member States in 2015. The book provides an in-depth analysis of the interconnections between the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development and t...

The renewable energy transformation will impact the entire economy. We investigate the impact and interlinkages in employment and non-renewable energy with the renewable energy transition in Europe. We further assess the potential contributions of renewable energy and non-renewable energy to the variability (changes) of future employment, output, a...

The ‘decade of action’ intended to accomplish the ambitious 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) faces notable challenges. Our investigation into the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on SDG progress reveals important lessons for shaping effective policy interventions to ensure resilient societies and overall well-being. Through systematic mapping a...

A popular uprising in 2014, led to a revolution that overthrew the sitting President of Burkina Faso. We investigate if individuals' risk attitudes changed due to this revolution. We examine this impact by the main determinants of risk attitudes: gender, age and level of education. The analysis is based on unique panel survey data, allowing us to t...

Sustainable development depends on the integration of the economy, society, and environment. Yet, escalating environmental challenges pose threats to both society and the economy. Despite progress in addressing environmental issues to promote sustainability, knowledge gaps in scientific research, technological advancement, engineering practice, and...

Using Rwandan Integrated Household Living Conditions surveys (2013/2014 and 2016/17), we investigate whether financial inclusion leads to improved nutrition in rural Rwanda. Our empirical evidence shows a robust positive impact of financial inclusion by formal financial institutions, although informal institutions like tontines were ineffective in...

The mention of the COVID-19 waves is as prevalent as the pandemic itself. Identifying the beginning and end of the wave is critical to evaluating the impact of various COVID-19 variants and the different pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical (including economic, health and social, etc.) interventions. We demonstrate a scientifically robust method t...

We examine the nexus between financial inclusion and energy poverty. Analysing data for 27 energy-poor countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region over 2004-2021, we employ sequential (two-stage), panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) and two-step dynamic system GMM (general-ized method of moments) regression models, and control for endogeneity, CSD...

The mention of the COVID-19 waves is as prevalent as the pandemic itself. We scientifically identify waves and the breaking points at which they begin and end from the beginning of the pandemic till June 2021. We use the Break Least Square method to determine the significance of COVID-19 waves for global-, regional-, and country-level data. The res...

A successful transition towards renewable energy systems in the European Union is expected to improve growth, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create employment. Analysing recent data from 28 European Union (EU) countries, we investigate the potential interlinkages in employment, renewable energy and non-renewable energy amongst the EU countries...

The sustainable consumption and productionsustainable consumption and production (SCP) (SCP) agenda has been a hypernym for various efforts and approaches to address the growing concerns on bio-diversity loss, resource availability, climate changeclimate change, and mounting waste problems on land and in seas.

Economic growth and increasing population impose long-term risks to the environment and society. Approaches to address the impact of consumption and production on bio-diversity loss, resource availability, climate change, and mounting waste problems on land and in seas have yet not proven to be successful. This calls for innovative approaches to ad...

With the current path of global population growth and expansion of consumption and production, the resource availability and resilience of the Earth Systems are under threat. Transformative changes require transformative ideas and innovative thinking. Given the overwhelming evidence provided by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the interna...

Circular economy principles are driving to overcome the challenges of today’s linear take-make-dispose production and consumption patterns through keeping the value of products, materials, and resources circulating in the economy as long as possible. Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume II: Circular Economy and Beyond aims to explore the...

The ´decade of action´ to achieve the ambitious 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 is off to a very challenging start. With progress on the achievement of most SDGs already lagging behind even before the Covid-19 crisis-our analysis nds that the pandemic negatively affects the achievement of 144 targets (almost 90%) of the SDGs. However, 66 t...

We develop a novel theoretical framework to explain the mechanism through which firms make decisions on corporate sustainability (CS). CS is modeled as the proportion of clean capital that firms use in their production process. Stakeholder groups such as consumers, communities (activists and non-governmental organizations), regulators, workers and...

An explicit goal of foreign aid is to promote female empowerment and gender equality in developing countries. We investigate if foreign aid achieves this intended goal by examining its impact on gender performance of recipient countries at the country level. Employing structural equation models, our results suggest that aid alone, even when targete...

We investigate the effect of the informal sector and a range of governance indicators on both global and local pollutants for a panel of 58 countries during 1996-2011. The analysis employs a fixed effects-instrumental variable generalized method of moments approach. We find that the size of the informal sector has a significant impact on environmen...

The increased immigration in Western Europe has been linked by some political parties to increased criminality rates. We study the statistical relationship between the proportion of foreign-born to three types of reported criminality - rapes, burglary, and assault. The analysis is based on Swedish municipality level data for 2002-2014, years with s...

Food insecurity and malnutrition are still major challenges for large proportions of households in Sab-Saharan Africa. The empirical literature on food demand, however, suggest mixed evidence on the roles of income and other socio-economic attributes on food demand. This study analyses the food demand amongst households in Rwanda, based on national...

Clean water is not only the product of expensive treatment technology, but also of upstream ecosystems. Yet, the effect of land use on downstream water quality is poorly understood. We investigate the value of ecosystem water purification as an input to the production of drinking water in Sweden. We employ a recently modified empirical approach, co...

Abstract The ambitious United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been criticized for being universal, broadly-framed, inconsistent and difficult to quantify, implement and monitor. We contribute by quantifying and prioritising the SDGs and their impact on sustainable development. We employ structural equation models (SEM) to investig...

The current high electricity prices in the European Union (EU), are in part due to the high electricity taxes. We investigate the synergy and trade-off effects of electricity taxes on sustainable development goals (SDGs) for the EU countries. Using panel data and panel vector autoregressive estimation approach, we find that higher household electri...

This paper proposes a model of behavioral change in situations that can be classified as public goods games. The model incorporates informational nudges and investigates how social preferences are affected by observing the actions taken by other people. Two model specifications of how preferences are adapted are proposed, and analytical results as...

There is broad scientific consensus that increasing global emissions at current rates will result in irreversible climate change. The global commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris agreement tries to address this concern with policy changes. But top-down approaches including voluntary emission cuts do not seem politically feas...

Do microfinance institutions (MFIs) operate in a monopoly, monopolistic competition environment or are their revenues derived under perfect competition markets? We employ the Panzar–Rosse revenue test on a global panel data to assess the competitive environment in which MFIs of five selected countries operate: Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru and Ph...

Growing competition in microfinance has been blamed for multiple borrowing, over-indebtedness and loan repayment crisis in recent times. Using the Boone indicator as a proxy for competition, we investigate how competition impacts microfinance institutions’ (MFIs’) outreach, financial performance and quality of loan portfolio in this paper. The anal...

The ambitious UN-adopted sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been criticized for being inconsistent, difficult to quantify, implement and monitor. Disparaging analysis suggests that there exists a potential inconsistency in the SDGs, particularly between the socio-economic development and the environmental sustainability goals. Critiques also...

This book explores environmental challenges in the Baltic region from an economic perspective. Featuring contributions by regional experts from Nordic, Baltic and Eastern European countries it addresses the response to eutrophication caused by increased nutrients in the sea from agriculture, wastewater, industry and traffic. It then proposes cost-e...

The Baltic Sea is one of the largest semi-enclosed bodies of brackish water in the world. Nine countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden) with a population of over 90 million share the sea. Its geography, climatology and oceanography have great political, social, economic and cultural significance for...

This chapter compares public attitudes to environmental protection in Estonia with those in neighbouring Baltic states. Data from the Estonian Environmental Survey (The Chair of Environmental Economics. Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, 2010) and ISSP Environment III are compared and analysed using an ordered logit. Support for environment...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) programme was an ambitious attempt to encourage a globalised solution to important but often-overlooked development problems. The programme led to wide-ranging development but it has also been criticised for unrealistic and arbitrary targets. In this paper, we show how country-specific development targets can...

We examine how the impact on women empowerment varies with respect to the location and type of group linkage of the respondent. Using household survey data from five states in India, we correct for selection bias to estimate a structural equation model. Our results reveal that in the southern states of India empowerment of women takes place through...

In 2015, the UN adopted a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate poverty, establish socioeconomic inclusion and protect the environment. Critical voices such as the International Council for Science, however, have expressed concerns about the potential incompatibility of the SDGs, specifically the incompatibility of socio-econ...

In this paper, we develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to study how water resilience a¤ects economic growth and dynamic welfare with special reference to South Africa. While water may become a limiting factor for future development in general, as a drought prone and water poor country with rapid population growth, South Afr...

An important transition in the economic history of countries occurs when they move from a regime of low prosperity, high child mortality and high fertility to a state of high prosperity, low child mortality and low fertility. Researchers have proposed various theories to explain this demographic transition and its relation to economic growth. In th...

In a competitive set up, by definition, many firms contend for a limited market share. In the financial sector in particular, competition greatly affects consumers’ wealth and financial soundness of banks (Bikker and Bos, 2005). Competition also affects the quality and diversity of products and productive efficiency of financial institutions (Claes...

This article evaluates the impact of widespread training programmes provided by the Self-Help Group (SHG) programme. Indian SHGs are primarily non-governmental organisation (NGO)-formed microfinance groups funded by commercial banks. This article employs evaluation techniques appropriate for current borrowers of a national programme. In addition, t...

In this paper, we analyze a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model on how water resilience affects economic growth and dynamic welfare with special reference to South Africa. While water may become a limiting factor for future development in general, as a drought prone and water poor country with rapid population growth, South Africa may face...

We examine how the impact on women empowerment varies with respect to the location and type of group linkage of the respondent. Using household survey data from five states in India, we correct for selection bias to estimate a structural equation model. Our results reveal that in the southern states of India empowerment of women takes place through...

In recent years growing competition in the microfinance industry has been censured for multiple borrowing, default crises, high interest rates and coercive recovery of loans. Using the Boone indicator as a measure for competition, our paper investigates the impact of competition on microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) outreach, financial performance a...

A key aim of economics is to set goals and investigate the relationship between various socio-economic indicators. By �tting time series data using a Bayesian dynamical systems approach we identify non-linear interactions between GDP, child mortality, fertility rate and female education. We show that reduction in child mortality is best predicted b...

Global emissions beyond 44 gigatonnes of carbondioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2020 can potentially lead the world to an irreversible climate change. Employing a novel dynamical system modeling approach, we predict that in a business-asusual scenario, it will reach 61 GtCO2e by 2020. Testing estimated parameters, we �nd that limiting the burden of e...

In recent years growing competition in the microfinance industry has been censured for multiple borrowing, default crises, high interest rates and coercive recovery of loans. Using the Boone indicator as a measure for competition, our paper investigates the impact of competition on microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) outreach, financial performance a...

Recent controversies regarding the high interest rates being charged by microfinance institutions (MFIs) have been justified in the name of financial sustainability. This article investigates whether MFIs' high interest rates improve profitability, reduce repayment rates and lead to mission drift. Within an agency theoretic framework, instrumental...

We investigate if participation in the Indian Self Help Group (SHG) program results in reducing poverty and vulnerability. The theoretical framework examines the mechanisms through which the pecuniary and non-pecuniary effects of the SHG impacts the households’ ability to manage risk. We use a vulnerability measure that quantifies the welfare loss...

We examine how the impact on women empowerment varies with respect to the location and type of group linkage of the respondent. Using household survey data from five states in India, we correct for selection bias to estimate a structural equation model. Our results reveal that in the southern states of India empowerment of women takes place through...

Financial inclusion through microfinance has become a powerful force in improving the living conditions of poor farmers, rural non-farm enterprises and other vulnerable groups. in its unique ability to link the existing extensive network of India's rural bank branches with the Self Help Groups (SHG), the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Devel...

This paper examines an adaptive strategy using occupational choice that can be undertaken by household members in urban poor areas to help ensure their access to food. Our investigation focuses on self-employed women and men in 14 predominantly slum communities in Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, and Thailand. Results of our empirical analysis show t...

We evaluate the effect of delivery mechanisms for training provided by facilitators of self-help groups. Indian self-help groups are unique in that they are mainly non-government organisation–formed microfinance groups but later funded by commercial banks. We correct for both membership and training endogeneity. Training impacts assets but not inco...

Financial inclusion through microfinance has become a powerful force in improving the living conditions of poor farmers, rural non-farm enterprises and other vulnerable groups. In its unique ability to link the existing extensive network of India's rural bank branches with the Self Help Groups (SHG), the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Devel...

We evaluate the impact of economic and non-economic factors on women’s empowerment of Self-Help Group (SHG) members. We estimate a structural equation model (SEM) and correct for ordinality in the data to account for the impact of the latent factors on women’s empowerment. Our SEM results reveal that for the SHG members, the economic factor is the...

Microfinance reduces vulnerability. We investigate if this impact varies by the delivery mechanism used. Correcting for the membership selection bias using Propensity Score Matching (PSM), the household's vulnerability is estimated using the Self-Help Group (SHG) microfinance programme data in India. The results show that the reduction in vulnerabi...

We empirically investigate whether participation in the Indian Self Help Group (SHG) microfinance programme has helped reduced poverty and household vulnerability using cross-sectional SHG rural household survey data. The potential selection bias is eliminated by propensity score matching to estimate the average treatment on treated effect using ne...

This study aims to identify regions in the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa that are prone to risk of violent conflicts (collective violence, popular unrest) induced by climatic changes/variability. The Zambezi River is 2575 kilometres long and the basin covers eight countries: Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique...

This study aims to identify regions in the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa that are prone to risk of violent conflicts (collective violence, popular unrest) induced by climatic changes/variability. The Zambezi River is 575 kilometres long and the basin covers eight countries: Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique a...

This paper critiques recent work that measures the impact of self-help groups, and explains the biases that resultfrom this assessment. Using survey data, it is shown that the methodologies used yield results that misstate the impact. A categorical breakdown is proposed to improve upon these studies, and a simple alternative procedure, the pipeline...

We evaluate the effect of delivery mechanisms for training provided by facilitators of self help groups (SHGs). Indian SHGs are unique in that they are mainly NGOformed microfinance groups but later funded by commercial banks. We correct for both membership and training endogeneity. Training impacts assets but not income. Underlying conditions that...

The Indian match industry in the southern state of Tamil Nadu has been characterized by child labour and a stagnant technology for over half a century. We investigate the technological changes and industrial restructuring, catalysed by the changing duty structure that has moved the match industry towards greater mechanization. Our examination indic...

This paper critiques recent work that measures the impact of self-help groups, and explains the biases that result from this assessment. Using survey data, it is shown that the methodologies used yield results that misstate the impact. A categorical breakdown is proposed to improve upon these studies, and a simple alternative procedure, the pipelin...

The provision of business training with microfinance leads to a positive impact on assets for the participating households. We correct for membership selection bias and account for potential training endogeneity with propensity score matching, using data from the Self Help Group microfinance program in India.

We investigate if participation in Indian Self Help Group microfinance program (SHG) results in reducing vulnerability. Vulnerability estimates are constructed using cross-sectional SHG rural household survey data, collected in 2003. The potential selection bias is eliminated by propensity score matching to estimate the average treatment on treated...

We evaluate the impact of training provided by facilitators of Self Help Groups (SHGs). This evaluation provides one of the first studies of the impact of ‘microfinance plus,’ or the disbursement of services beyond credit. Indian SHGs are mainly NGO-formed microfinance groups but funded by commercial banks. We correct for membership selection bias...

116 Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate the degree of, and the condition under which smallholder beef producers in Hanh Phuoc commune, Nghia Hanh district, Quang Ngai province, Vietnam engaged in the beef market. The hypothesis of this study was that the participation of rural farmers to market is influenced by household charact...

Summary We evaluate the effect of Self Help Group participation on a long-term impact parameter, namely, asset creation. Indian Self Help Groups (SHGs) are unique in that they are mainly NGO-formed microfinance groups but later funded by commercial banks. The results reveal that longer membership in SHGs positively impacts asset creation, robust to...

Microfinance programmes like the Self Help Bank Linkage Program in India have been increasingly promoted for their positive economic impact and the belief that they empower women. However, only a few studies rigorously examine the link between microfinance and women's empowerment. This article contributes to this discussion by arguing that women's...

We evaluate the effect of training, in both skill development and human capital, provided by facilitators of self help groups (SHGs). Indian SHGs are unique in that they are mainly NGO-formed microfinance groups but later funded by commercial banks. The results suggest that, in general, training does not impact assets but training can reverse the p...

Microfinance programs like Self Help Group Bank linkage program (SHG), aim to empower women through provision of financial services. We investigate this further to determine whether it is the economic or the non-economic factors that have a greater impact on empowering women. Using household survey data on SHG from India, a general structural model...

One common solution to resolve poverty is providing microfinance to the poor. Microfinance has been claimed to positively impact the livelihoods of the poor through accumulation of social, human, financial, natural, and physical assets. This paper empirically examines if microfinance contributes to the reduction of poverty in the Mekong Delta regio...

Uncertainty and unpredictability faced by low-income households increase their vulnerability making poverty even more unbearable. India¡¦s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)-initiated Self-Help Group (SHG) program, which is currently the largest and fastest growing microfinance program in the developing world, has been agg...

Demand for rural credit from formal institutions of developing countries remains unsatisfied due to limited access to credit. Using data from Tan Linh commune in Vietnam, this study investigates the factors affecting the access to credit for rural households in Vietnam. It further examines the demand for credit and the factors affecting the borrowi...

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The demand and supply of credit in the rural credit markets is investigated in this article using household data from India. The aim is to study the effects of household, farm productive characteristics and the policy variables on the demand and supply of credit. A type 3 Tobit model is estimated which corrects for sample selection and endogeniety...