Tag Search: “corruption”

Time in office and gender gap in dishonesty: Evidence from local politics

Existing literature associates a higher share of women in politics with lower corruption; honesty is viewed as an inherent or static character trait. However, using information collected from 400 elec...

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Private returns to bureaucratic appointments: Evidence from financial disclosures in India

Bureaucrats often face rigid salary structures, and face low-powered incentives that have less wage differentiation based on performance. Using bureaucrats’ self-reported asset declarations from the I...

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On the perils of embedded experiments

There is growing interest in ‘embedded experiments’, conducted by researchers and policymakers as a team. Aside from their potential scale, the main attraction of these experiments is that they seem t...

  • Perspectives

DUET re-examined

In September 2020, Jean Drèze’s proposal for an urban work programme called DUET (Decentralised Urban Employment and Training) was presented on I4I. This was followed by an extensive symposium in whic...

  • Perspectives

Combating corruption and illicit outflows: A welfare-oriented approach

A discussion of the association between corruption in economies and leakage through illicit outward flows – with important implications for welfare – is missing in the literature. Based on a theoretic...

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Digging for dirt: Rent-seeking among elected politicians in India’s mineral belt

The Indian mining industry is no stranger to corruption scandals and every year dozens of environmental activists are murdered for exposing illegal mining activities. This article discusses the impact...

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Balancing corruption and exclusion: A response

The role of Aadhaar in reducing corruption in PDS has been highly controversial. In a recent I4I article, Muralidharan et al. summarised the results of their study in Jharkhand, which confirmed the 'p...

  • Perspectives

Curbing leakage in public programmes: Evidence from Direct Benefit Transfer policy for LPG subsidies

Many developing countries subsidise access to essential commodities with in-kind transfer programmes, where beneficiaries receive goods at subsidised prices while non-beneficiaries have to pay the mar...

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Are transparency and accountability enough? Open corruption and why it exists

While India’s federal anti-corruption ombudsmen have just taken up their work, awareness of the complexity of corruption is growing. This article studies whether highly accountable Indian village coun...

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Should civil servants be allowed to serve in their home areas?

Bureaucrats form an essential part of State capacity. Should they be allowed to serve in their home areas? This article finds that Indian Administrative Service officers assigned to their home states ...

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Out of power? Political capture of the Indian electricity sector

Although power generation has been growing exponentially in India, the quality of electricity supply remains poor. This article argues that political corruption is among the root causes behind unrelia...

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Are women politicians good for economic growth?

There has been a phenomenal global increase in the proportion of women in politics in the last two decades, but there is no evidence of how this influences economic performance. This article investiga...

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