In this study, we examine disparities in financial development at the regional level in India. The major research questions of the study are: how do we measure the level of financial development at the sub-national level? How unequal is financial development across the states? Does it vary by ownership of financial institutions? To explore these research questions, our study develops a composite banking development index at the sub-national level for three different bank groups – public, private and foreign for 25 Indian states covering 1996–2015. Our findings suggest that despite reforms, banking development is significantly higher in the leading high income and more developed regions compared to lagging ones. Furthermore, we find that all bank groups including public banks are concentrated more in the developed regions. Overall, over the years the position of top three and bottom three states in the aggregate banking index have remained unchanged reflecting lop-sidedness of regional development. We also note improvement in the ranking of some north-eastern states during the period 2009–15.

中文翻译：

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印度的区域金融差距：可以衡量吗？

在本研究中，我们考察了印度区域层面的金融发展差异。该研究的主要研究问题是：我们如何衡量地方层面的金融发展水平？各州的金融发展有多不平等？它是否因金融机构的所有权而异？为了探索这些研究问题，我们的研究为 1996 年至 2015 年印度 25 个邦的公共、私人和外国三个不同的银行集团制定了地方层面的综合银行发展指数。我们的研究结果表明，尽管进行了改革，但与落后地区相比，领先的高收入地区和较发达地区的银行业发展明显更高。此外，我们发现包括公共银行在内的所有银行集团都更多地集中在发达地区。全面的，多年来，银行业综合指数前三名和后三名州的位置保持不变，反映了区域发展的不平衡性。我们还注意到 2009-15 年期间一些东北部州的排名有所改善。