Financial Services

The Asset Building Program is pleased to announce a call for guest blog contributions. Our blog functions as a repository of information about our research projects and policy proposals, provides timely news analysis and updates from the field of asset building, and regularly features the work of partner organizations.

What topics are eligible for consideration on The Ladder?

We welcome posts that explore a range of topics, including, but not limited to: income and wealth inequality; federal, state and local savings policy; the interplay of homeownership, housing policy, and wealth; savings and credit product design; the role of assets in educational outcomes; public benefits and areas for reform; retirement security and savings; and the intersection of asset issues with race, gender, or other factors.

Who can contribute a guest post?

Those with expertise in relevant fields are welcome to submit a proposal for a guest post. Posts from asset building practitioners or others with “on the ground” experience, as well as posts from advocates, researchers and those with policy-oriented experience are all welcome.

The link between household wealth and youth’s educational outcomes has been confirmed by numerous research studies, finding that youth tend to do better educationally when their households have more wealth (click here and here for more information). A new paper from the Assets and Education Initiative at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare confirms the relationship between household wealth and math achievement for youth from the U.S. and Ghana. The paper adds a unique contribution to existing research.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include the impact of Hurricane Sandy, inequality, the safety net, and financial products and education.

When it comes to savings for the poor and financial inclusion efforts, India is a dynamic market ripe for innovation and experimentation. Its extensive web of financial service providers as well as the incidence of large-scale exclusion are contradictory features that also make it a market worth examining.

In less than two weeks, our friends at the SEEP Network will be hosting their Annual Conference focused this year on Building Inclusive Markets: Impact Through Financial and Enterprise Solutions. We’re particularly interested in this year’s conference because half of the plenary sessions are focused on savings.

On October 4, 2012, the Asset Building Program submitted comments to the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability (PACFC) providing insights on motivations and challenges employers face when implementing financial capability programming in the workplace and recommendations for the draft framework presented by the PACFC.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include international poverty, financial products, homeownership, financial education, and inequality.

Over the last decade, anti-poverty initiatives across the developing world have increasingly focused on gender-based strategies, and in particular, on achieving equality and empowerment through gender-focused program innovation. While important progress has been made in the last several years, men still outnumber women in paid employment in almost every region of the developing world, with more women working informally, and in more vulnerable employment positions, than men.

If you haven't had a chance yet, I highly recommend checking out Co.Exist, a new media site focused on "innovation that's going to change the way we live and the resources we use." Filling a niche that other outlets rarely address, it discusses "creative solutions that make everyone rich while helping the people of the world lead fulfilling lives."

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, banking, income and wealth inequality, and education.