28 April, 2022Do 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
- Articles
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
- Articles
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
- Articles
Promoting women in grassroots governance: Strategies that work
There are more than a million women elected to the Panchayati Raj Institutions of local governance in India. Despite constitutional provisions, women face many barriers when they participate in local ...
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Madhu Joshi
- 14 November, 2018
- Notes from the Field
Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of highways?
In the past, infrastructure projects in India have suffered from long delays, massive cost overruns, and poor quality of assets. A widely held belief is that public private partnerships (PPPs) can sol...
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Ram Singh
- 05 November, 2018
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Food subsidy – PDS, cash, or both?
Should food subsidies – currently availed in the form of subsidised cereals – be given out in the form of cash instead? In this post, Krishna and Agrawal contend that rather than asking this binar...
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Tushar Agrawal Anirudh Krishna
- 31 October, 2018
- Perspectives
Anganwadi: A workforce of women with a near-impossible mandate
With a workforce of 1.4 million women, the Anganwadi system forms the backbone of India’s Integrated Child Development Services Scheme – the world’s largest community-based programme for child d...
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G. Ananthapadmanabhan Guruswamy Kavitha Kuruganti
- 26 October, 2018
- Notes from the Field
How leader identity impacts group coordination
In principle, leaders can facilitate group coordination towards a common goal but in diverse societies, their effectiveness may depend upon their social identity, and how citizens react to leader iden...
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Sonia Bhalotra Irma Clots-Figueras Lakshmi Iyer Joseph Vecci
- 22 October, 2018
- Articles
Heart of darkness: Misplaced priorities of Jharkhand’s District Mineral Foundation
In 2015, the central government launched District Mineral Foundations in the districts affected by mining, which are mandated to collect royalty from all mining activities and use the funds for the we...
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Arindam Banerjee Aditya Ranjan
- 08 October, 2018
- Notes from the Field
Do Indian voters mind their representatives getting rich in office?
Asset declarations, requiring politicians to disclose their financial information, are becoming increasingly common across the world. In India, financial declarations are part of public affidavits fil...
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Simon Chauchard S.P. Harish Marko Klašnja
- 10 August, 2018
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How governance and public expenditure impact human development
The state of Madhya Pradesh displays wide variance in human development outcomes across its districts. This article examines the link between public expenditure, quality of governance, and human devel...
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N. R. Bhanumurthy Richa Jain Manish Kumar Prasad
- 01 August, 2018
- Articles
Do dishonest people gravitate towards the public sector in India?
The corruption level in the public sector may not only depend on punishments and systems put in place to deter corruption, but also on who chooses to enter the sector. This article finds that people w...
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Rema Hanna Shing-Yi Wang
- 30 July, 2018
- Articles
The strategic logic of money flows in Indian elections
Why do political candidates give voters handouts during election campaigns, even when they are unable to monitor voter behaviour? Based on a qualitative study in Mumbai, this article argues that compe...
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Simon Chauchard
- 16 July, 2018
- Articles
Protecting data privacy: Authorisation and access control
The B.N. Srikrishna Committee, which was constituted in August 2017 to draft India’s data protection laws, is expected to submit its final recommendations this month. In this post, Banerjee and Shar...
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Subhashis Banerjee Subodh V. Sharma
- 04 July, 2018
- Perspectives
Sunlight as disinfectant: Disclosure requirements and corruption in India
It is believed that transparency and free access to information can root out corruption and malfeasance in government. This article finds that the introduction of asset disclosure rules for candidates...
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Raymond Fisman
- 22 June, 2018
- 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
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