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The growing wave of decentralisation: Comparative evidence from developing countries

Over the last few decades, decentralisation has been rapidly spreading in developing countries across the world, with around 35 countries announcing new or deepening decentralisation reforms in recent...

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How women in politics impact maternal mortality

In the twelfth post of I4I’s month-long campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2023, Bhalotra et al. show that mortality during and after childbirth remains high, even where the knowledge and ...

  • Articles

Does being local matter? Administrative decentralisation and human development

In this post, Chaudhary and Iyer discuss the administrative decentralisation reforms brought about by the Panchayati Raj Act, and measure the effect of decentralisation on the provision of public serv...

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I4I turns 1!

It has been a year since the voice of ‘Ideas for India’ was first heard. Our mission was to be an outlet for evidence-based arguments on a wide set of issues relevant to Indian growth and developm...

  • Perspectives

Star Wars

Debraj Ray gets to the heart of the growth versus redistribution debate and argues that a sectoral imbalance in growth is inevitable. While occupational choice is an important way to deal with this, ...

  • Perspectives

Economic growth versus social development: The spatial dimension

In the context of the economic growth versus social development debate sparked off by Bhagwati and Sen, this column argues for a more nuanced approach to assessing progress. Combining nationally repre...

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Turn Right or Left? Or is there a middle way?

Dilip Mookherjee shares his perspective on the recent Bhagwati versus Sen debate. While Sen represents the pro-state-led assistance stand and Bhagwati is seen as pro-market, what India requires is th...

  • Perspectives

Food Bill: Neither populist nor unaffordable

Criticism of the National Food Security Bill has led to the government dropping the idea of issuing an Ordinance and instead, saying it would try to get the Bill passed in a special session of Parlia...

  • Perspectives

Cash Transfer versus In-Kind Transfers: A conceptual framework and preliminary evidence

This project studied the performance of a conditional cash transfer scheme called Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana, which provides money to purchase a bicycle to every student who is enrolled in standard nin...

  • IGC Research on India

Bihar's malnutrition crisis and potential solutions

The prevalence of underweight children in Bihar is higher than in any country in the world, and the provision of public services to address malnutrition is poor. Based on an assessment of the governm...

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The role of informal caste networks in public service delivery

Large public programmes designed at the national level are often undermined by corruption at the local level. This column proposes local level monitoring and enforcement through informal networks as ...

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IAP improving lives in Maoist-affected areas

In this Note from the Field, a PMRDF working in the Left Wing Extremism affected Purulia district in West Bengal, narrates how the Maoist movement disrupted livelihoods, revenue generation and public...

  • Notes from the Field

Adoption of Water-Saving Infrastructure in Agriculture: The Case of Laser Levellers

Water tables are falling rapidly, in large part due to the fact that individuals do not bear the social marginal cost of the water they use; free water extraction is a property right attached to land ...

  • IGC Research on India

Should bribe-givers be let off?

In 2011, Economist Kaushik Basu argued that for a class of bribes, the law should not punish the bribe-giver. This column presents results of experiments conducted to test this idea and provides insi...

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Two questions about the 2G scandal

The scandal involving corruption in the allocation of 2G licenses left the nation stunned. This column presents estimates of the revenue loss to the government, and says that while the common man was...

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Ejaz

Ejaz Ghani

Pune International Center

Rahul

Rahul De

Azim Premji University

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Guilhem Cassan

University of Namur

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Francesca R. Jensenius

University of Oslo

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Julia Cagé

Sciences Po Paris

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Lakshmi Iyer

University of Notre Dame

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Sarmistha Pal

University of Surrey

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Jean-Paul Faguet

London School of Economics

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Most Popular Governance Posts

Unique Health Identification and Aadhaar: A case for mandatory linkage

As part of the Digital India initiative, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) issues a Unique Health Identification (UHID) number to each patient, which documents their entire journey in th...

  • Perspectives

Caste dominance in rural India: Cause and effect

Rural India remains a caste-based society. This column explores why caste continues to play such an important role and what the effects are. It argues that trade and agricultural productivity suffer, ...

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Why did the Indian economy stagnate under the colonial rule?

How did the Indian economy fare under the colonial rule? Is the average Indian significantly better off after Independence? This column examines trends in GDP per capita in order to determine the stan...

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