Service standards in the provision of health and education in the states in India are low on average and also characterized by large inter-state disparities. These disparities are due to differences in fiscal capacity, differences in revenue effort and differences in priority accorded to the...

The global financial crisis severely impacted Asia from late 2008 to early 2009 (Figure 1). Although the initial impact appeared limited, the region was directly hit when the crisis spread to the real sector and caused the volume of world trade to collapse. According to the latest projection by...