Election of criminal politicians and public service delivery

Why are politicians with criminal records elected to office, despite voters having the option to weed them out? Based on the hypothesis that criminal politicians strategically deliver targeted benefit...

  • Articles

Boosting Lekhpal performance via data-driven feedback and recognition

The Lekhpals Actionable KPI System for Holistic Assessment and Management (LAKSHYAM) is an initiative to measure and enhance the work performance of Lekhpals, who are frontline functionaries of the Re...

  • Notes from the Field

Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance

In a new edition of I4I conversations, Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics) is joined by Karthik Muralidharan (University of California, San Diego) to discuss his new book, Accelerating India...

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Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: Issues and gaps in service delivery and access

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a much-needed and purposeful scheme, given the health hazards faced by women inside households as 79% of rural Indian households still depend on traditional unclea...

  • Perspectives

Do politicians receive special treatment in courts?

Do Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) facing pending criminal cases receive favourable treatment in the Indian legal system? This article uncovers opposite effects of winning office, depending o...

  • 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 ...

  • Notes from the Field

How democratic are the states of India?

India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy – but does the degree of democracy vary across Indian states? This article develops an index to map the development of subn...

  • Articles

Political alignment and economic outcomes: Evidence from legislative assembly elections in India

Theory suggests better economic outcomes prevail when providers at different levels of government are politically aligned. While politicians are jointly responsible for several policies, other policie...

  • Articles

Ujjwala 2.0: What should be done next?

Stopping the use of wood and other solid fuels for cooking and other household uses is crucial to mitigating air pollution and its staggeringly high health impacts in India. In 2016, the government an...

  • Articles

Using mobiles to improve governance

Measuring how well major public programmes are implemented remains a core governance challenge. With the increasing mobile-phone penetration in the country, Muralidharan, Niehaus, Sukhtankar, and Weav...

  • Perspectives

India’s emerging crisis of representation

Article 81 of the Indian Constitution requires that each state receive Lok Sabha seats in proportion to its population and allocate those seats to constituencies of roughly equal size. However, the ch...

  • Articles

Power to the people: The impact of political report cards in India

How do Indian voters react to information on the qualifications and performance of politicians?

  • Podcasts

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?

  • 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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles

Recent Contributors

Yamini

Yamini Aiyar

Brown University

Shrayana

Shrayana Bhattacharya

Author and Economist

Abhinav

Abhinav Khemka

University of Milan Statale

Fahad

Fahad Hasin

IDinsight

Sakshi

Sakshi Ugale

Government of Maharastra

Maitreesh

Maitreesh Ghatak

London School of Economics

Karthik

Karthik Muralidharan

University of California, San Diego

Jean

Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

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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...

  • 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, ...

  • 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...

  • Perspectives