1. Racial Wealth Gap: La June Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, applies insights from the US Financial Diaries project to the economic realities of families of color in America, where a persistent racial wealth gap and structural impediments to equality remain.  Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Behavioral Economics: Behavioral "nudges" incorporated into policy design may produce some change but fall short of solving major issues like encouraging retirement savings among the poor. As Eduardo Porter puts it, "fancy cognitive tricks may fail to overcome the main obstacle faced by the poor: a lack of money." The New York Times

3. Cash Transfers: At a recent event, Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton touched on foreign aid, global and national inequality, and globalization. He also warned the development community of potential unintended consequences of cash transfers as the intervention grows in popularity. Center on Foreign Relations

1. Financial Inclusion: FAI's Executive Director Jonathan Morduch discusses what the fight against poverty in the US can learn from the developing world and vice versa. Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Racial Wealth Gap: "A quarter of black children will make less than 80 percent of what their parents did, meaning that even in this expanding economy with higher earnings, as adults they are not just worse off relatively, but objectively. Put simply, retaining middle class status is more difficult for black families across generations." Urban Institute

3. Consumer Protection: Customer protection initiatives like the Smart Campaign seek to protect the interests of microfinance clients.  But how would customers define good and bad lending practices? A new compilation of client feedback seeks to find out. Center for Financial Inclusion

1. Informal Finance: Savings clubs, money guards, and loans from family members are just a few ways many Americans are creating their own DIY financial services. Planet Money

2. Impact Evaluations: David Evans' reflections on zero effect results in educational interventions are a nice reminder of the lessons we can learn from the microcredit impact evaluations. The World Bank - Development Impact

3. Retirement Savings:  Is the case against expanding social security simply the result of a math error? The Los Angeles Times

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1. Income Volatility:  The Aspen Institute's Ida Rademacher explores policy solutions to providing families long-term financial security, Rachel Schneider and Nancy Castillo of CFSI highlight emerging fintech products, and Dave Prosser, SVP at Freedom First Credit Union, discusses responsible underwriting for SSIR's ongoing blog and webinar series. Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Microfinance: Chris Dunford reviews microfinance's conventional theory of change and why the industry is in need of rebranding to showcase poverty alleviation as an achievement, not a consolation prize. NextBillion

1. Housing Instability:  Ellen Seidman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, discusses the role of housing instability for the latest post in SSIR's ongoing blog and webinar series. Seidman points out that even if regulation helps to preserve America's limited stock of affordable housing, household income volatility requires changes to housing finance programs. Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Digital Divide: The focus of the 2016 World Development Report is the economic impact (or lack thereof) of digital technologies. The report finds developing countries have on aggregate missed out on major economic gains from the rapid proliferation of mobile phones and other digital technologies, despite the promise of growth. The World Bank

3. Financial Inclusion: American Express announced plans to close most of its enterprise growth division, tasked with reaching lower income customers, with the exception of debit cards for the unbanked. Bloomberg Business

1. Financial Lives of Americans:  The second post in a blog and webinar series on the hidden financial lives of Americans discusses the impact of income volatility for low- and middle-income households. Even when families are saving, a mismatch of income and expenses creates barriers to financial stability. Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Minimum Wage: In November, Emeryville, CA became the first US city to raise the minimum wage to $15 practically overnight. While some workers notice almost immediate financial relief, others don't feel they are getting ahead (but do say they aren’t falling behind quite as rapidly). The Nation

3. Microcredit: Growing client indebtedness, regulatory loopholes, and debt-related suicides in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are causing some to wonder if theses areas are on the verge of a crisis similar to Andhra Pradesh's in 2010. The Wire

1. Financial Lives of Americans:  Featuring research from the US Financial Diaries project, the first post in a new blog and webinar series explores how the financial lives of low- and middle-income Americans have changed in the past few decades...and how programs and policies designed to help them also need to change. Stanford Social Innovation Review

2. Future of Microfinance: "It’s time to reframe the research questions – setting aside the question of whether 'microfinance' can 'solve poverty' and moving on to a next generation of research which accurately reflects both the nature and the intentions of current financial inclusion practice." NextBillion

3. Banking for Migrants: Lack of identification, strict regulations, and language difficulties often deter large banks from providing services to migrants. But many community-based financial institutions (in America and Europe) are finding new ways to serve migrant populations. The Economist

1. Savings Research: The latest "State of the Campaign" report estimates there were 211 million microfinance borrowers in 2013, 114 of whom had incomes of less than $1.90/day. MFIs as a whole continue to shift away from the poorest and toward wealthier clients for the third year in a row. Microcredit Summit Campaign 

2. Cash Transfers: A new J-PAL study reports significant effects on female empowerment among women receiving conditional cash transfers (CCT) in urban Macedonia. In areas where women directly received CCTs (and were potentially more empowered), they had a lower willingness to pay to maintain control over cash than in areas where they may not be as empowered, such as when the head of household received the transfers. J-PAL