In developing countries, potential home-buyers lack accurate information about housing projects. Insecure property rights in developing countries have led to a rise in litigation against these projects. Information asymmetry between developers and buyers about the litigation status results in...

We investigate what happens when the politician-developer nexus is disrupted by an election. We find that if the incumbent party loses, real-estate project completion times increase by 5%. We investigate two mechanisms for the slowdown, delayed permits and increased litigation. We find that...

The paper written from a governance perspective takes the position that a useful governance perspective must be informed by the socio-economic-cultural milieu and in the specific Indian context must sit on a tripod of ‘political reality’, ‘state of decentralization’ and ‘basic economic...

We investigate what happens when the politician-developer nexus is disrupted by an election. We find that if the incumbent party loses, real-estate project completion times increase by 5%. We investigate two mechanisms for the slowdown, delayed permits and increased litigation. We find that...

Urban flooding poses danger to people and places. People can adapt to this risk by moving to safer areas or by investing in private self-protection. Places can offset some of the risk through urban planning and infrastructure investment. By constructing a global city data set that covers the...

We study the effects of a positive wealth shock due to a series of state and federal reforms that granted equal inheritance rights to Indian women on the quantity and quality of children and son preference. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that women who were affected by...

Mutually beneficial arrangements between politicians and real estate developers are common in many developing countries. We document what happens when the politician-developer nexus is disrupted by an election. We construct a novel dataset of real estate projects and electoral constituencies in...

Corruption in India is ubiquitous and may be broadly identified as illegal and legal. This paper delves into the typology of legal corruption in India, which, apart from abuse of discretionary power, and tactical law and policy making, also includes – not so well documented – use of...