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Productivity & Innovation

Intellectual property rights and wage inequality

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Alleviating financial concerns to enhance worker productivity

Financial constraints can have psychological consequences and affect productivity by making workers more distracted during work. Based on an experiment among small-scale manufacturing workers in Odish...

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Dealing with worker absenteeism in labour-intensive industries

Worker absenteeism in labour-intensive industries causes productivity losses for firms, and reduced potential for productivity-based incentives for workers. Based on a study in Karnataka, this article...

  • Articles

Intellectual property rights and wage inequality

Technology has become central to most everyday activities. But will incentives for technological change – such as those induced by Covid-19 – cause deeper distortions in the global economy, especi...

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Contract labour and firm growth in India

There is considerable evidence indicating that the Industrial Disputes Act (IDA), 1947 – which made it illegal for large companies to downsize – had a powerful disincentive effect for entrepreneur...

  • Articles

Intellectual property rights and wage inequality

Technology has become central to most everyday activities. But will incentives for technological change – such as those induced by Covid-19 – cause deeper distortions in the global economy, especi...

  • Articles

Inequality, labour market trends, and the welfare State

All around the world, rising levels of inequality – particularly in the last 3-4 decades – have been recognised as a major issue. In this context, David Green (University of British Columbia) and ...

  • Videos

Alleviating financial concerns to enhance worker productivity

Financial constraints can have psychological consequences and affect productivity by making workers more distracted during work. Based on an experiment among small-scale manufacturing workers in Odish...

  • Articles

Dealing with worker absenteeism in labour-intensive industries

Worker absenteeism in labour-intensive industries causes productivity losses for firms, and reduced potential for productivity-based incentives for workers. Based on a study in Karnataka, this article...

  • Articles

Short-term illness and intra-household labour substitution

For poor, agricultural households, health shocks strain limited resources on medical expenses, and result in loss of potential productive work-days. Based on data from rural India, this article shows ...

  • Articles

Covid-19 lockdown and migrant workers: Survey of vocational trainees from Bihar and Jharkhand - II

Covid-19 and the associated lockdowns have led to widespread job losses, and a subsequent exodus of migrant workers from the cities. In this note, Chakravorty et al. discuss findings from their survey...

  • Notes from the Field

Would a four-day work week benefit women?

In February 2021, the Indian government stated that it may allow firms the flexibility of having a four-day work week, while retaining the norm of 48 hours of work per week. In this post, Koustav Maju...

  • Perspectives

Can technology mitigate the impact of heat on worker productivity?

Exposure to high heat causes productivity losses, with reduction in cognitive function as a key channel. A direct reduction in heat exposure via technologies such as air conditioning is not possible f...

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India’s new labour codes: A pre-condition for long-run growth

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has recently notified four new labour codes, which are expected to be implemented from April 2021. Assessing the impact of the policy changes around hiring-and-fi...

  • Perspectives

‘Outside’ managers’ productivity, firm dynamics, and economy growth

In developed countries, many industrial giants have humble beginnings as small, family-owned businesses, but nonetheless expand to hundreds of thousands of employees over time by relying on professio...

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Expectations, wage hikes, and worker voice

Understanding how exit decisions of workers are affected by their ability to voice their concerns, is a central question in labour economics. Based on an experiment in 12 garment factories in Karnatak...

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Neelanjan Sircar

Centre for Policy Research

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Deepaboli Chatterjee

Centre for Policy Research

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Devesh Kapur

Johns Hopkins University

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Milan Vaishnav

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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Marianne Bertrand

University of Chicago

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Chang-Tai Hsieh

University of Chicago

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University of California at Berkeley

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Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management

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Most Popular Productivity & Innovation Posts

The impact of robotisation on the world economy: A forward-looking review

Robots have long existed in human imagination and only recently in the real world. The baggage of past imagination often intrudes into our understanding of how real robots will affect our economic liv...

  • Explainers

Tripura’s bamboo sector: Potential and challenges

About a third of the total area of Tripura is covered by bamboo, and bamboo has emerged as a key thrust area for the state’s industrial development. Based on a field visit that was undertaken to stu...

  • Notes from the Field

An offline alternative for Aadhaar-based biometric authentication

While decision on the constitutionality of Aadhaar by the Supreme Court of India remains a matter of speculation, it has become abundantly clear that most of the use cases for Aadhaar-based biometric ...

  • Perspectives