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
Diversity and public goods: Why the geographical unit of analysis matters
Research has shown that regions with higher caste diversity have lower share of villages with essential public goods. This article challenges this finding and shows that empirical models estimated at ...
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Naveen Bharathi Deepak Malghan Sumit Mishra Andaleeb Rahman
- 23 November, 2020
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Does the right to vote affect political behaviour? Historical evidence from India
Democracies are known to have better economic development outcomes over the longer run. However, it is not clear whether giving citizens the right to vote is sufficient for ensuring an effective degre...
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Guilhem Cassan Lakshmi Iyer Rinchan Ali Mirza
- 17 November, 2020
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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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Samuel Asher Paul Novosad
- 10 November, 2020
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DUET: Decentralise employment generation to urban local bodies
Dilip Mookherjee supports Drèze’s suggestion to decentralise employment generation to urban local bodies, and contends that the moribund nature of urban local government is a key reason for the neg...
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Dilip Mookherjee
- 14 September, 2020
- Perspectives
Synchronised elections, voter behaviour, and governance outcomes
An active policy proposal of the Government of India is to hold national elections at the same time as the assembly elections of all the states. This article examines whether holding national and stat...
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Vimal Balasubramaniam Sabyasachi Das Apurav Yash Bhatiya
- 28 August, 2020
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Citizen-State relations: Countryside and city
To what extent do citizens expect officials to respond to local problems, and how do they make demands on the State to advance their well-being? Based on surveys in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, this ...
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Adam Auerbach Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner
- 24 August, 2020
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Does political reservation work, and for whom?
Does political reservation undermine or promote development, and for whom? This article presents an analysis of India’s Scheduled Areas, which reserve political office for the historically disadvant...
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Saad Gulzar Nicholas Haas Ben Pasquale
- 11 August, 2020
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Covid-19: Is it time to decentralise power?
Raghuram Rajan speaks to Econ Film’s CoronaNomics show, on the merits of de-centralised governance in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic, how local authorities can be empowered, and the risk o...
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Raghuram Rajan
- 24 July, 2020
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The politics of post-retirement appointments: Corruption in the Supreme Court?
The Indian judiciary bats for judicial independence. Wary of executive interference, judges ferociously protect their institutional turf. But does India’s judicial system suffer from an underhanded ...
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Madhav Aney Shubhankar Dam Giovanni Ko
- 15 June, 2020
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Court congestion, caste identity, and business performance
Effective contract enforcement is the key for the formation and expansion of business enterprises. But how does improvement in court performance matter differently to different caste groups? This arti...
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Tanika Chakraborty Anirban Mukherjee Sarani Saha Divya Shukla
- 14 May, 2020
- Articles
Kerala’s management of Covid-19: Key learnings
Kerala was the first Indian state to be affected by Covid-19 with the highest number of cases at one point in time, but today it has a flat infection curve and one of the highest recovery rates in Ind...
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S.M. Vijayanand
- 02 May, 2020
- Perspectives
How district courts influence firm growth
The Economic Survey 2018-19 highlights that the single biggest constraint to ease of doing business in India is contract enforcement and dispute resolution, and increasing capacity in lower judiciary ...
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Manaswini Rao
- 29 January, 2020
- Articles
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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