Productivity & Innovation

‘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...

Ufuk Akcigit Harun Alp Michael Peters
26 February, 2021

Articles

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...

Koustav Majumdar
20 April, 2021

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...

Anna Custers Prathap Kasina Deepak Saraswat Anjali P. Verma
16 April, 2021

Articles

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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 ...

Subhashis Banerjee Subodh V. Sharma
24 September, 2018

Perspectives

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...

Siddhartha Mitra
25 July, 2018

Explainers

Management and India’s economic growth

India has produced a well-recognised elite of managers, some of whom have demonstrated their capabilities in premier firms outside the country. In this post, Nirvikar Singh discusses existing empirica...

Nirvikar Singh
20 July, 2018

Perspectives

India’s R&D expenditure: Composition matters

While gross expenditure on R&D in India has been on the rise in recent years, it is dominated by public investment. In this post, Sanjib Pohit contends that the current system of allocating public fun...

Sanjib Pohit
18 April, 2018

Perspectives

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...

Bornali Bhandari
13 April, 2018

Notes from the Field

Role of private sector in the holistic skilling of India’s workforce

Low skill levels of workers are a key reason for low labour productivity in developing countries. In this article, Adhvaryu et al. discuss research that centres around two important questions in this...

Achyuta Adhvaryu Smit Gade Lavanya Garg Anant Nyshadham
14 March, 2018

Perspectives

Introduction to e-Symposium: Firms and labour productivity

Eighty per cent of India’s labour force works ‘informally’. Providing employment with decent wages and benefits to this segment requires structural transformation of the economy to more high-pr...

Farzana Afridi
12 March, 2018

Symposium

Parikshit Ghosh speaks with Debraj Ray

In this podcast, Parikshit Ghosh (Member of the I4I Editorial Board & Associate Professor, Delhi School of Economics) speaks with Debraj Ray (Julius Silver Professor, Faculty of Arts and Science, and ...

Parikshit Ghosh Debraj Ray
13 February, 2018

Podcasts

Let Them Buy Light: The Welfare Benefits of Electricity for Rural Households and Enterprises

This project measured the welfare effects of increased access to electricity for rural households and micro-enterprises by letting them buy light. The research design experimentally offers off-grid, s...

Robin Burgess Michael Greenstone Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
08 August, 2016

IGC Research on India

Smart data: Can visualised administrative data help inform and hold public stakeholders accountable?

The project examined how interactive data visualisations can be used to present administrative data in a way that is easily digestible, lends itself to exploration and provides a clear link to require...

Eric Dodge Charity Troyer Moore Rohini Pande
31 March, 2016

IGC Research on India

The Benefits of Solar Technology Adoption for Street Vendors in Bihar

This project evaluates the socio-economic impact of distributing solar lighting to street vendors in urban Bihar, in collaboration with a local civil society organization (NIDAN). The findings of the...

David Szakonyi Johannes Urpelainen
31 January, 2015

IGC Research on India

Intervention design of Integrated Performance Management System (IPMS) for ICDS

Leakages from the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) have compromised the effectiveness of the programme. The study proposed a new design for an effective monitoring system for the ICDS progra...