31 July, 2025What broad lessons have we learned from 115 studies on unconditional cash transfers?
Globally, around 700 million people currently live in extreme poverty, and in recent years, unconditional cash transfers have emerged as a popular tool for poverty alleviation in low- and middle-incom...
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Tommaso Crosta Dean Karlan Finley Ong Julius Ruschenpohler Christopher Udry 
20 June, 2025
- Articles
Food deprivation: A thali index reveals what poverty estimates do not
Poverty in India is typically estimated based on a poverty line that identifies the purchasing power needed to satisfy the daily calorific intake deemed necessary. In this post, Balakrishnan and Raj m...
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Pulapre Balakrishnan Aman Raj
- 06 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Could better jobs for men have improved gender equality?
Evidence indicates that economic growth can improve gender equality. In this post, Sujata Balasubramanian suggests that India’s high-growth period from 1982-83 to 2011-12 failed to do so substantial...
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Sujata Balasubramanian
- 25 April, 2025
- Articles
Bringing global evidence into the MNREGA discourse
MNREGA – the largest public works programme in the world – completed 10 years this month. In this article, Inayat Anaita Sabhikhi, Project Officer, United Nations Development Programme, at the Min...
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Inayat Sabhikhi
- 12 February, 2016
- Articles
From the top to the bottom of MNREGA
MNREGA – the world’s largest public works programme - is intended to be demand-driven and has local implementation at its core. In this note, Megan Sheahan, Research Support Specialist at Cornell...
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Megan Sheahan
- 08 January, 2016
- Notes from the Field
Against the tide: Deaton's economics
In a tribute to Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, Reetika Khera, who did her post-doctorate research at Princeton University under Deaton, outlines his India-specific cont...
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Reetika Khera
- 17 December, 2015
- Perspectives
Beyond leaky pipes: Fixing enrolment systems of welfare schemes
Policy initiatives of JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile numbers) trinity and direct benefit transfer focus on unclogging the supply of benefits under welfare schemes by reducing payment leakages....
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Shrayana Bhattacharya Soumya Kapoor Mehta Rinku Murgai
- 09 December, 2015
- Articles
Angus Deaton's ideas for India
In a tribute to Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in Economics, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears – former graduate students of Prof. Deaton at Princeton University – review some of his work on th...
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Diane Coffey Dean Spears
- 30 October, 2015
- Perspectives
The coexistence of prosperity and poverty in India
Credit Suisse recently reported that the richest 10% Indians own about 75% of the country’s wealth, highlighting the growing problem of inequality. This column presents trends in inequality in Indi...
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Dhairiyarayar Jayaraj S. Subramanian
- 21 October, 2015
- Articles
Angus Deaton: The real world economist
In a tribute to Angus Deaton, recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, outlines Deaton’s contribution to econ...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 20 October, 2015
- Perspectives
Are self-help groups helpful?
While a lot of funding goes towards community-driven development projects, rigorous evidence on their socioeconomic impact is limited. This column evaluates the impact of JEEViKA – a rural liveliho...
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Upamanyu Datta
- 11 September, 2015
- Articles
Income inequality in India: Trends from the World Top Incomes Database
Given the lack of reliable wage or asset data, tax returns-based World Top Incomes Database is important for measuring income and wealth inequalities. Analysing the India series of the database, this...
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Amit Basole
- 31 August, 2015
- Articles
A symposium on Piketty - II: Capitalist dynamics and the plutocrats
In the last part of the series on Piketty, Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, discusses the implications for further study that Piketty’s book has for devel...
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Pranab Bardhan
- 17 June, 2015
- Perspectives
A symposium on Piketty: Introduction
Thomas Piketty’s book on ´Capital in the Twenty First Century’ has made waves. The fact that a 700-odd page tome full of numbers and graphs can become an international bestseller is itself notewo...
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Ashok Kotwal
- 15 June, 2015
- Symposium
A symposium on Piketty - I: Nit-Piketty
In this part of the series on Piketty, Debraj Ray, Professor of Economics, New York University, attempts to clear the confusion caused by the theoretical discussion in Piketty’s book.
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Debraj Ray
- 15 June, 2015
- Perspectives
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Wealth inequality, class, and caste in India: 1961-2012
The level of wealth inequality in India is close to that of some highly unequal countries in the world. This article assesses the long-term evolution of wealth inequality in the country for the period...
- Nitin Kumar Bharti
- 28 June, 2019
- Articles
Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population
With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...
- Reetika Khera
- 25 March, 2020
- Perspectives
A review of the coverage of PDS
The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...
- Reetika Khera Anmol Somanchi
- 19 August, 2020
- Perspectives