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Fiscal transfers and natural calamities: Does political alignment matter?

Fiscal transfers from the central government serve as an important mechanism for state governments to mitigate adverse impacts of extreme climate events. This article demonstrates that higher allocati...

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Why political competition matters when inequality is high

In a high-inequality setting, local politicians with secure positions may favour the rich by diverting resources towards them, at the cost of the poor. To test this hypothesis, this article analyses d...

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Expected or unexpected? Strategic communication around audits to maximise deterrence

Even with evidence on how audits can be designed to be more effective in deterring corruption by bureaucrats, in practice, budget constraints restrict governments from being able to conduct audits wit...

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Panchsutras for carrying out a successful Governance Transformation

Following his last piece, which put forth a Governance Matrix that could be used assess a government system’s readiness to drive outcomes, Gaurav Goel puts forth five principles, or panchsutras, whi...

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The panchayat asset register: An instrument to conserve India’s commons

With common lands making up nearly a quarter of Indian territory, the State has taken steps to protect them from encroachment. The Indian Constitution grants panchayats custodial rights to protect vil...

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The Governance Matrix: Understanding a system’s readiness for change

To explain the gap between the expectation of perfect outcomes and the reality of an imperfect system, Gaurav Goel puts forth The Governance Matrix, a tool which can be used to assess the readiness of...

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Time in office and gender gap in dishonesty: Evidence from local politics

Existing literature associates a higher share of women in politics with lower corruption; honesty is viewed as an inherent or static character trait. However, using information collected from 400 elec...

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Party preferences and strategic voting in India

In the absence of compelling information that would allow them to accurately predict election outcomes in their constituency, many voters believe that their preferred candidate will win. Looking at vo...

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Electricity Act amendment: The need for a cautious approach

The recently proposed amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003 comes after nearly two decades with few legislative changes. In this post, Dixit and Josey review electricity sector developments, especial...

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The WhatsApp effect: Evidence on political engagement, preferences and polarisation

In recent years, political parties in India have increasingly leveraged WhatsApp as a tool to reach voters, raising concerns about the influence of social media on the democratic process. This article...

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Demographic and development outcomes of administrative proliferation

This creation of new administrative districts by splitting existing districts is a frequent occurrence in India, where the number of districts has more than doubled in the last four decades. Looking a...

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Do 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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Private returns to bureaucratic appointments: Evidence from financial disclosures in India

Bureaucrats often face rigid salary structures, and face low-powered incentives that have less wage differentiation based on performance. Using bureaucrats’ self-reported asset declarations from the...

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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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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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Recent Contributors

Sabyasachi

Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

Souvik

Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

Soham

Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

Muneer

Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Kanika

Kanika Mahajan

Ashoka University

Ritam

Ritam Chaurey

Johns Hopkins SAIS

Shekhar

Shekhar Tomar

Indian School of Business

Anubhab

Anubhab Pattanayak

IIT Kharagpur

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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, ...

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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