We conduct ethnographic, qualitative, and quantitative research across rural and semi-urban economies — translating fieldwork into briefs and papers that shape education, agricultural, and sustainability markets.
In each, we ask how communal resources, knowledge, and institutions — the commons — shape market outcomes for people the data usually misses.
How families, schools, and informal providers navigate the cost, access, and quality of learning where public and private provision overlap.
Explore research →How smallholders, cooperatives, and shared land and water resources interact with input, credit, and produce markets across the season.
Explore research →How communities govern shared natural resources — and how emerging markets for carbon, conservation, and climate adaptation reach the ground.
Explore research →Long, embedded observation that captures how markets are actually lived — not just measured.
Interviews and focus groups that surface the reasoning, trust, and trade-offs behind decisions.
Surveys and data work that test patterns at scale and make findings comparable across places.
“The commons aren’t a relic of the past. They are the quiet infrastructure on which most developing markets still run.”
— From our founding note
A field study of three farming villages on how informal rules around shared irrigation shape what households are willing to pay — and plant — each season.
We partner with funders, operators, and institutions who need to understand how markets really work on the ground.
