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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K. S. Kavi Kumar
Anubhab Pattanayak
14 November, 2024
- Articles
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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Anders Kjelsrud
Kalle Moene
Lore Vandewalle
13 September, 2024
- Articles
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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Wendy Wong
11 September, 2024
- Articles
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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Gaurav Goel
09 December, 2022
- Perspectives
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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Pooja Chandran
Subrata Singh
07 December, 2022
- Perspectives
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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Gaurav Goel
02 December, 2022
- Perspectives
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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Ananish Chaudhuri
Vegard Iversen
Francesca R. Jensenius
Pushkar Maitra
16 November, 2022
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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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Oliver Heath
Adam Ziegfeld
06 October, 2022
- Articles
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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Shantanu Dixit
Ann Josey
23 September, 2022
- Perspectives
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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Kevin Carney
16 August, 2022
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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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Deepak Malghan
Jothsna Rajan
08 August, 2022
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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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David Agrawal
Laura Zimmermann
25 May, 2022
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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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Amit Chaudhary
Song Yuan
28 April, 2022
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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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Fiona Burlig
Akshaya Jha
Louis Preonas
08 April, 2022
- Articles
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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Lucie Gadenne
Tushar Nandi
Ross Warwick
28 March, 2022
- Articles
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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...
Mudit Kapoor
23 December, 2016
- 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, ...
Siwan Anderson
16 August, 2012
- 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...
Venugopal Mothkoor
Fatima Mumtaz
23 March, 2021
- Perspectives