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Governance

Accountability and responsibility

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Decentralisation and spatial (mis)allocation of irrigation water

Canal water – an important source of irrigation in India – often tends to be unequally distributed among farmers within a geographical area. Based on a survey in the state of Odisha, following the...

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The influence of local politicians in the private education market

Private schooling has experienced rapid expansion in India – both in terms of number of schools and student enrolment. Analysing data from 2005-2017, this article shows that constituencies represent...

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How immigration policy uncertainty affects labour markets

President Trump’s re-election has reignited debate over H-1B visa policies, a temporary high-skill work visa programme wherein 70% of visas are held by Indians. Analysing jobs data from India from t...

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Design choices for implementing affirmative action

In this expository piece, Ashutosh Thakur explains the various ways in which affirmative action policies can be implemented, and discusses the underlying tradeoffs and issues at hand. He delineates th...

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Panchsutras for carrying out a successful Governance Transformation

Following his last piece, which put forth a Governance Matrix that could be used assess a government system’s readiness to drive outcomes, Gaurav Goel puts forth five principles, or panchsutras, whi...

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The panchayat asset register: An instrument to conserve India’s commons

With common lands making up nearly a quarter of Indian territory, the State has taken steps to protect them from encroachment. The Indian Constitution grants panchayats custodial rights to protect vil...

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The Governance Matrix: Understanding a system’s readiness for change

To explain the gap between the expectation of perfect outcomes and the reality of an imperfect system, Gaurav Goel puts forth The Governance Matrix, a tool which can be used to assess the readiness of...

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Recent Contributors

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Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

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Amartya Sen

Harvard University

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Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

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Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

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Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

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Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

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Kanika Mahajan

Ashoka University

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Ritam Chaurey

Johns Hopkins SAIS

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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...

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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, ...

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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...

  • Perspectives