16 December, 2019Criminally accused politicians and economic outcomes
Despite a history of widely contested and transparent elections, and presence of vibrant and open media, an increasing number of criminally accused politicians are being elected in India. Based on an...
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Tasneem Ahmed Nishith Prakash Marc Rockmore Yogesh Uppal 
15 January, 2016
- Articles
Consent to nothing: Aadhaar-based payment systems in welfare
The process of seeding Aadhaar with bank accounts in order to link welfare schemes and cash transfers with Aadhaar payment systems, created chaos on the ground. In this note, Niklas Wagner and Sakina ...
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Sakina Dhorajiwala Niklas Wagner
- 23 August, 2019
- Notes
How do Indian voters respond to candidates with criminal charges: Evidence from Lok Sabha elections
An alarming number of India’s politicians have criminal records or some charges against them. This column asks how they manage to get away with it. It looks at evidence from parliamentary elections ...
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Bhaskar Dutta Poonam Gupta
- 30 July, 2012
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Criminal politicians and informed voting in India
In India, 9% of legislators face criminal charges. Could voter information and coordination improve the country’s political representation?
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Yusuf Neggers
- 23 May, 2019
- Podcasts
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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Prabhat Barnwal
- 06 May, 2019
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Do roads bring votes in rural India?
A large-scale rural roads programme in India has provided access to over two-third of villages that lacked a paved road in 2001. Do citizens reward incumbent governments electorally for these improvem...
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Tanushree Goyal
- 26 April, 2019
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Oral democracy
Critical scrutiny of the challenges of electoral democracy including elite capture, corruption, and patronage has led to a revival of the idea of direct democracy – giving power directly to groups o...
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Vijayendra Rao Paromita Sanyal
- 24 April, 2019
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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 co...
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Dahyeon Jeong Ajay Shenoy Laura Zimmermann
- 18 April, 2019
- Articles
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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Marianne Bertrand Robin Burgess Guo Xu
- 08 April, 2019
- Articles
Strengthen MNREGS to support the rural economy
India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) has generated a lot of controversy about its effectiveness as a safety net designed to benefit landless rural households. M...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 22 March, 2019
- Perspectives
Rethinking cadre allocation procedures in civil services
The allocation procedure of All-India Services’ officers to states is an important aspect of personnel administration in the public sector. This article shows that a change in allocation policy in 2...
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Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles
(Un)ease of doing business: How congested courts hinder firm productivity
The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organise production, and hence influences productivity. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing, this article quantifies the...
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Johannes Boehm Ezra Oberfield
- 01 March, 2019
- Articles
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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Meera Mahadevan
- 21 January, 2019
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Need for a choice-based approach in PDS
A large share of public spending on the Public Distribution System (PDS), India’s flagship food security programme, does not reach intended beneficiaries. Thus, the idea of Direct Benefits Transfer ...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 11 January, 2019
- Perspectives
Like father, like son? The economic impacts of political dynasties in India
Political dynasties remain ubiquitous in democratic countries even though many societies democratised to end hereditary rule. This article studies how dynastic politics affects economic development in...
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Siddharth George
- 19 December, 2018
- Articles
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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, ...
- Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
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...
- Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- Perspectives
Rethinking cadre allocation procedures in civil services
The allocation procedure of All-India Services’ officers to states is an important aspect of personnel administration in the public sector. This article shows that a change in allocation policy in 2...
- Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles