Fiscal policy measures are a key means by which governments can influence distribution and poverty, but in fact the relationships between fiscal policy and poverty are not well understood. The most commonly used technique for assessing the distributional impact, benefit incidence analysis, is...

Most studies on poverty alleviation and reduction programmes emphasize structural bottlenecks, asymmetric information, and rent seeking behaviour. This paper provides an analytical characterization of the beneficiaries in a situation of much structural and conditional rigidity, where all...

So what’s social policy got to do with economic growth? Quite a lot, it would appear, if one takes the results of cross-country growth regressions at face value, as they are by many social policy analysts, even as they criticize the findings of the economic policy part of the very same...

The crowding-in phenomenon together with inter-sectoral linkages is used in this paper to examine the effect of higher public investment for agriculture on the stable growth of this sector as well as of the entire economy. [Working Papaer 201]. URL:[http://www.cdedse.org/].

In tribute, a brief note on the rich intellectual trajectory described by I. G. Patel

This note seeks to show that the debate on ‘Pro-Poor Growth’ is sterile and largely academic with few policy insights.

This study, entitled “Municipal Finance in India – An Assessmentâ€, undertaken for the Development Research Group (DRG), Reserve Bank of India examines the performance of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in India. Using data from 35 Metropolitan Municipal Corporations, the study...

A major reform process in the Indian economic policy regime away from a four- decade-long inward orientation has been under way since July 1991 in response to a serious macro-economic crisis. The new policy regime aims at liberalising regulations on domestic economic transactions (including...

This Tenth Nani A. Palkhivala Memorial lecture lecture centres around the role and responsibility of a central bank in a democratic structure. Central banks make macroeconomic policy that influences the everyday life of people; yet they are managed by unelected officials appointed by the...