14 November, 2024Is it better to be governed by an elected leader or appointed bureaucrat?
The division of governance functions and responsibilities between politicians and bureaucrats varies, both across and within political regimes. Based on an experiment in Karnataka, this article examin...
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Abhishek Arora Siddharth George Nivedita Mantha Vijayendra Rao M.R. Sharan 
25 September, 2024
- Articles
Why political competition matters when inequality is high
In a high-inequality setting, local politicians with secure positions may favour the rich by diverting resources towards them, at the cost of the poor. To test this hypothesis, this article analyses d...
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Anders Kjelsrud Kalle Moene Lore Vandewalle
- 13 September, 2024
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The ‘Odisha model’ for disaster resilience
From its management of the devastating Super Cyclone in 1999 to the more recent challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of Odisha has been a testament to the power of adaptive governance....
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Souryabrata Mohapatra
- 16 August, 2024
- Perspectives
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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Ananish Chaudhuri Vegard Iversen Francesca R. Jensenius Pushkar Maitra
- 16 November, 2022
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Party preferences and strategic voting in India
In the absence of compelling information that would allow them to accurately predict election outcomes in their constituency, many voters believe that their preferred candidate will win. Looking at vo...
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Oliver Heath Adam Ziegfeld
- 06 October, 2022
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Electricity Act amendment: The need for a cautious approach
The recently proposed amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003 comes after nearly two decades with few legislative changes. In this post, Dixit and Josey review electricity sector developments, especial...
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Shantanu Dixit Ann Josey
- 23 September, 2022
- Perspectives
The WhatsApp effect: Evidence on political engagement, preferences and polarisation
In recent years, political parties in India have increasingly leveraged WhatsApp as a tool to reach voters, raising concerns about the influence of social media on the democratic process. This article...
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Kevin Carney
- 16 August, 2022
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Demographic and development outcomes of administrative proliferation
This creation of new administrative districts by splitting existing districts is a frequent occurrence in India, where the number of districts has more than doubled in the last four decades. Looking a...
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Deepak Malghan Jothsna Rajan
- 08 August, 2022
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Do value-added taxes benefit firms? Evidence from the adoption of state-specific value-added taxes
Value-added tax (VAT) systems have grown popular in the last 30 years, especially among developing countries looking for ways to raise tax revenue efficiently. Using 2000-2012 data on product, state-s...
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David Agrawal Laura Zimmermann
- 25 May, 2022
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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...
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Amit Chaudhary Song Yuan
- 28 April, 2022
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Fixing incentives for power plants to reduce outages
Consumers in India face frequent power outages despite relatively high-quality infrastructure and ample supply of power plants. This article identifies a novel explanation for India’s blackouts: whe...
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Fiona Burlig Akshaya Jha Louis Preonas
- 08 April, 2022
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Does going cashless make you tax-rich? Evidence from India’s demonetisation
During 2014-2017, the share of adults using electronic payments in the developing world increased by over a third, and policymakers have expressed optimism regarding the role of this trend in promotin...
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Lucie Gadenne Tushar Nandi Ross Warwick
- 28 March, 2022
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How colonial is Indian law?
Critiques of the colonial rule in India and its legacy have been extended to law – with many allusions to the need to shake off the yoke of the colonial legacy. In this post, Roy and Swamy unpack th...
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Tirthankar Roy Anand Swamy
- 18 February, 2022
- Perspectives
Budget and politics in pandemic times
Applying a political economy lens to the recently announced Budget 2022-23, Yamini Aiyar contends that the emphasis on capital expenditure over welfare in the two Budgets announced during the pandemic...
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Yamini Aiyar
- 16 February, 2022
- Perspectives
Improving public service delivery by fixing payment systems
Fixing how funds flow through the government systems grabs far fewer headlines than malnutrition, problems in the education sector, or crumbling infrastructure. In this post, Charity Troyer Moore cont...
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Charity Troyer Moore
- 28 January, 2022
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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...
- Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- 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, ...
- Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
The digital dream: Upskilling India for the future
While the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which technology is becoming commonplace in our lives, it has also exposed a stark digital divide, leaving a large proportion of India’s popul...
- Venugopal Mothkoor Fatima Mumtaz
- 23 March, 2021
- Perspectives