This paper has the objective of showing that identity based voting will lead to improvements in household welfare through increased access to welfare programs. Using newly available data from rural India, we establish that identity based voting will lead to enhanced participation in welfare...

Attempts to maintain prices different from those that would otherwise be determined by supply and demand are virtually guaranteed to result in illegal behaviour, including in the case of laws that determine the salaries of civil servants. In Indonesia, private sector salaries are highly...

The paper develops a simple model of the Soeharto 'franchise', in which the coercive power of government was deployed in the interests of the president, his family, his business cronies and key officials within the franchise. The franchise prospered by generating rents that could be harvested...

The clearing of forests for agricultural land and other marketable purposes is a well-trodden path of economic development. With these private benefits from deforestation come external costs: emissions from deforestation currently account for 12 per cent of global carbon emissions. A widespread...

Given that the phenomenon of capture of public programs by sections the population is rampant in developing countries, households can indulge in a strategy to improve their odds of participating in public programs by bribing the suppliers of such programs. This is an important issue affecting...

The objective of the present study is to answer the question whether the corporate organized retail outlets (ORO) have exerted any harmful effects on the small unorganized retail outlets(URO) in India. Answer to this question will facilitate us to gauge the impact of corporate FDI in retail on...

Given that the phenomenon of capture of public programs by sections the population is rampant in developing countries, households can indulge in a strategy to improve their participating in public programs by bribing the suppliers of such programs. This is an important issue affecting both the...

Development economists often analyse the performance of particular sectors of the economy, yet they have largely ignored that of one of the most important sectors, namely, the public sector, the performance of which is demonstrably poor. They are also continually giving recommendations to the...

Theoretical studies suggest that corruption may counteract government failure and promote economic growth in the short run, given exogenously determined sub optimal bureaucratic rules and regulations. As the government failure is itself a function of corruption, however, corruption should have...