Surviving debt and survival debt in times of lockdown

Isabelle Guérin (1, 2, 3, 4) , Sébastien Michiels (2, 5, 6) , Arnaud Natal (7) , Christophe Jalil Nordman (2, 8, 3) , Govindan Venkatasubramanian (2)

1 CESSMA UMRD 245 - Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques
2 IFP - Institut Français de Pondichéry
3 IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
4 Princeton University
5 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
6 CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique
7 BSE - Bordeaux Sciences Economiques
8 LEDA-DIAL - Développement, Institutions et Modialisation

What are the consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on household debt? Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected in rural Tamil Nadu, this paper highlights the massive risks of financial fragility. Quantitative data show a very high level of pre-COVID-19 debt, and the lockdown was accompanied by a large-scale suspension of repayments. At the same time, there was a halt to unsecured debt and an erosion of the trust that cements most transactions. Last, but not the least, the emergence of new forms of secured debt that seriously threaten household assets was observed.

Mots clés: Debt; lockdown; caste; employment; India; Trust

Domaines: Economies et finances

Isabelle Guérin, Sébastien Michiels, Arnaud Natal, Christophe Jalil Nordman, Govindan Venkatasubramanian. Surviving debt and survival debt in times of lockdown. Economic and political weekly, 2022, 57 (1), pp.41-49. ⟨hal-03509592v2⟩