Vishnu Prasad & Rachit Khaitan talk about their research paper “How much can asset portfolios of rural households benefit from formal financial services?” This paper is a systematic attempt to quantify the benefits of financial inclusion and capital markets access using tools of modern finance.

1. How Much Can Asset Portfolios of Rural
Households Benefit from Formal Financial
Services?
Vishnu Prasad & Rachit Khaitan
October 15th, 2014

2. Section 1
• Conceptual framework
Section 2
• Extant asset portfolios
Section 3
• Asset portfolios with the
introduction of financial assets
Agenda

3. Section 1
Conceptual Framework

4. Modern Portfolio Theory
“Not only does the E-V [expected returns-variance of returns] hypothesis
imply diversification, it implies the “right kind” of diversification for the
“right reason.”
The adequacy of diversification is not thought by investors to depend
solely on the number of different securities held.
A portfolio with sixty different railway securities, for example, would not
be as well diversified as the same size portfolio with some railroad, some
public utility, mining, various sorts of manufacturing, etc.
The reason is that it is generally more likely for firms within the same
industry to do poorly at the same time than for firms in dissimilar
industries.”
(Markowitz, 1952)

5. Efficient Frontier
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00%
Efficient Frontier
Return Risk
Asset A 20% 28%
Risk Free Asset 8% 0%
Weight A Weight Rf Portreturn PortSD
-50% 150% 2.00% 14.00%
-40% 140% 3.20% 11.20%
-30% 130% 4.40% 8.40%
-20% 120% 5.60% 5.60%
-10% 110% 6.80% 2.80%
0% 100% 8.00% 0.00%
10% 90% 9.20% 2.80%
20% 80% 10.40% 5.60%
30% 70% 11.60% 8.40%
40% 60% 12.80% 11.20%
50% 50% 14.00% 14.00%
60% 40% 15.20% 16.80%
70% 30% 16.40% 19.60%
80% 20% 17.60% 22.40%
90% 10% 18.80% 25.20%
100% 0% 20.00% 28.00%

6. Efficient Frontier
30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% 35.0%
Efficient Frontier 2 Assets
Efficient Frontier 3 Assets
Return Risk
Asset A 20% 28%
Asset B 25% 33%
Correlation 37.00%
W Asset AW Asset B Portreturn PortSD
0% 100% 25.0% 33.0%
10% 90% 24.5% 30.8%
20% 80% 24.0% 28.9%
30% 70% 23.5% 27.3%
40% 60% 23.0% 26.1%
50% 50% 22.5% 25.3%
60% 40% 22.0% 24.9%
70% 30% 21.5% 25.0%
80% 20% 21.0% 25.6%
90% 10% 20.5% 26.6%
100% 0% 20.0% 28.0%

7. How do you answer this question?
We construct
stylised household
asset portfolios that
are stratified based
on source of income
(primary and
secondary).
Using Modern
Portfolio Theory
(MPT), we then
compare the
performance of the
stylised portfolios
over time with the
performance of a
hypothetical
portfolio that offers
these households
access to a suite of
financial
instruments.
Finally, we quantify
the financial gain to
five stylised
occupational
categories from a
limited suite of
seven financial
assets.

8. Section 2
Extant Asset Portfolios

9. Household Finance Perspective
Households face long but finite planning
horizons
Household asset portfolios are typically
composed of non-tradeable and illiquid assets
such as housing and human capital
Households often face significant constraints
on borrowing

10. Household Finance Perspective
There are discrepancies between ideal and observed
financial behaviour of households
Investment in housing crowds out investment in
financial assets
Household asset portfolios are diverse, simple, and
predominantly invested in low-risk assets
Households actively manage their asset portfolios, even
in the absence of access to formal financial markets

11. Dataset
1,43,632
customers
201 branches
5 districts
in Tamil Nadu,
Uttarakhand, and
Odisha

12. Stylised Asset Portfolios
Asset Category Median Value (in INR) Percentage of Total Assets
Electronics 7,000 3%
House 99,000 49%
Vehicle 1,250 0.6%
Consumption assets
(total) 107,250 53%
Agricultural equipment 500 0.25%
Investment - 0%
Jewellery 88,320 44%
Land - 0%
Livestock 4,500 2%
Shop - 0%
Investment assets (total) 93,320 46%
All assets (total) 200,570 100%

13. Occupational Classification
51%
15%
Primary occupation 56%
13%
12%
6%
2% 1% 1% 0%
19%
Secondary occupation
15%
5%
3%
1% 1% 1% 0%

14. Household Typologies
Jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery
Land
Land
Land
Land
Land
Livestock
Livestock
Livestock
Livestock
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
Agriculture-Only Labour-Only Salaried-Agriculture Business-Agriculture Labour-Agriculture
Median Value (INR)
Consumption assets Agricultural-equipment Investment Jewellery Land Livestock Shop

15. Portfolio Risk-Return on Physical Assets:
Estimation Methodology
Land Rs. 14,535 output per acre of a basket of 44 crops for
17 states in India
Income per acre is 20-35% of the value of the output
Source of risk - 1% deviation from mean historical
rainfall leads to a 1% decline in output
Drought or Flood event - If rainfall varies in excess of
one standard deviation above or below mean rainfall
Hold for a 50-year period

16. Portfolio Risk-Return on Physical Assets:
Estimation Methodology
Livestock Revenue streams- Milk, Manure & Calf
Costs- Purchase price, Fodder, Medical expenses & Insemination
Purchase price of the cow- Rs. 20,000 (Ongole breed)
Assumed life expectancy- 10 years
Sources of risk - (1) Morbidity (incidence of foot and mouth disease; (2)
Mortality (death of the animal during its 10-year lifetime)
Mortality and morbidity rates- Primary research conducted by Bangar et
al. (2013)

17. Risk-Returns of Physical Assets
Jewellery (Gold) Land Livestock
Annual
Returns 14.64% 2.35% 10.26%
Standard
Deviation 18.70% 0.21% 17.86%

18. Portfolio Risk-Return on Physical Assets
6.93%
14.62%
6.86%
7.64%
7.07%
6.13%
18.60%
5.48%
6.79%
5.92%
20%
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
Agriculture-Only Labour-Only Salaried-Agriculture Business-Agriculture Labour-Agriculture
Annual Return Standard Deviation

19. Section 3
Introduction of Financial Assets

20. Risk-Return of Physical Assets (with insurance)
Land Livestock
Annual Returns 2.52% 12.06%
Change in Returns 0.17% 1.80%
Standard Deviation 0.00% 9.12%
Change in Risk -0.21% -8.74%

21. Portfolio Risk-Return (with insurance)

22. Suite of Replacement Financial Assets
Return Risk
BSE Top 100 22.82% 33.24%
Equity-ETF 20.77% 30.43%
Savings Bank Account 5.00% 0.00%
G-Sec (3 year) 7.17% 0.98%
G-Sec (9 year) 7.61% 0.79%
G-Sec (15 year) 7.97% 0.70%

23. Effect of Replacement Financial Assets
Agriculture-
Only
Labour-
Only
Salaried-
Agriculture
Business-
Agriculture
Labour-
Agriculture
Nominal Returns on
Portfolio of Physical Assets 6.93% 14.62% 6.86% 7.64% 7.07%
Real Returns on Portfolio of
Physical Assets -1.11% 6.58% -1.18% -0.40% -0.97%
Real Returns on Portfolio of
Financial Assets 2.50% 8.60% 2.01% 3.05% 2.34%
Change in Returns 3.61% 2.02% 3.19% 3.45% 3.31%
Standard Deviation 6.13% 18.60% 5.48% 6.79% 5.92%

24. Efficiency Frontier: Replacement Financial Assets

25. Efficiency Frontier: Replacement Financial Assets
with NPS

26. Policy Implications
Products
• Mutual Funds
• National Pension Scheme – Swavalamban (NPS-S)
Distribution
Channels
• Banking designs
• Economies of scope
• KYC norms
• Small-ticket transactions
• Universal bank accounts

27. Conclusion
Modern finance is a central pillar of
civilised society, and for society to fully
realise its promise, finance “has to be
expanded, democratized and
humanized…by giving people the ability
to participate in the financial system as
equals.”
- Robert J. Shiller, Finance and the
Good Society