The survey years from both organized and unorganized sectors that are included in our study are 1989-90, 1994-95, 2000-01 and 2005-06. Additionally, 2009-10 data from the ASI for the organized sector is included, while 2010-11 data from the NSSO for the unorganized sector is also incorporated. For the sake of simplicity, we normally refer to the sample year by the starting year—for instance, the sample survey in the year 2005-06 is referred to as the 2005 survey. We likewise use 2010 to refer to the years 2009-10 for ASI data and years 2010-11 for NSSO data. As depicted above, the NSSO data provide the maximum possible coverage in terms of included years for the unorganized sector. Our development procedures below seek to address changes in the internal organization of surveys, as well, to the extent they exist.

Establishments in both the organized and the unorganized sectors provide information on their financial loans, if any. For the organized sector, we have information on opening and closing values of outstanding loans as well as the overdraft, cash credit, and other short-term loans from banks and other financial institutions. For our purposes, we consider the closing values of these variables. We also have information on the interest paid on these loans.

For the unorganized sector, we theoretically have more detailed information vis-à-vis the organized sector. For some rounds, information on loans is available from the following sources: (i) institutional sources (data separately available for central- and state-level term lending

> 2004, code 01405); and (d) non-ASI enterprises manufacturing bidis and cigars (those registered under bidi and cigar workers (condition of employment) Act of 1966, as well as those un-registered). Some of the surveys (such as 2010-11) covered trading enterprises and service establishments, but we exclude them for the purposes of our paper. Additionally, the NSSO excluded: (a) repairing enterprises not falling under Section D of NIC-2004; (b) departmental units, such as railway workshops, RTC workshops, government mints, sanitary, water supply, gas, storage, etc. in line with ASI coverage; (c) units covered under ASI; and (d) public sector units.

As for the sample design in the unorganized sector, a stratified multi-stage design has been adopted. The first stage units (FSU) are the census villages in the rural sector and Urban Frame Survey (UFS) blocks in the urban sector. The ultimate stage units are enterprises in both sectors. In case of large FSUs, one intermediate stage of sampling is the selection of three hamlet-groups/sub-blocks from each large rural/urban FSU. Two frames were used (as per the 62nd round survey): the List frame and the Area frame. The List frame was used only for the urban sector and that too for selection of manufacturing enterprises only. For unorganized manufacturing enterprises, a list of about 8000 big non-ASI manufacturing units in the urban sector prepared on the basis of the data of the census of manufacturing enterprises conducted by Development Commissioners of Small Scale Industries in 2003 was used as list frame for surveys in 2005-06 and 2010-11. Area frame was adopted for both rural and urban sectors. The list of villages as per the 2001 census was used as the frame for the rural sector, and the latest available list of UFS blocks was used as frame in the urban sector. The relevant year’s economic census was used as frame for the towns with population 10 lakhs or more (as per Census 2001).

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