A bill to promote autonomy of higher educational institutions and universities for free pursuit of knowledge and innovation and to provide for comprehensive and integrated growth of higher education and research keeping in view the global standards of educational and research practices and for...

Idea on National Knowledge Commission, what it is and what are they trying to accomplish, ask for the audience support, understanding and also talk about the need for major reforms in University education. [Convocation Address at University of Mumbai].

Budget speech by Finance minister. URL:[http://punjabgovt.nic.in/departments/Budget/budget/budget.htm].

Various issues related to delays and cost overruns in publically funded infrastructure projects are investigated. The study is based on, by far, the largest data-set of 850 projects across seventeen infrastructure sectors. The focus is on the causal factors behind time and cost overruns. [CDE WP...

Unique survey data is used to study whether the introduction of local elections in China made local leaders more accountable towards local constituents. A simple model is developed to predict the effects on different policies of increasing local leader accountability, taking into account that...

In this paper, four categories of existing resource-mobilization options are examined, including (1) transportation levies; (2) currency and financial transaction taxes; (3) capitalization of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs); and (4) the sale, mobilization, or capitalization of IMF gold....

A simple theory is developed which formally describes how charities can resolve the information asymmetry problems faced by small donors by working with large donors to generate quality signals. To test the model, two large-scale natural field experiments were conducted. In the first experiment,...

India’s health policy has focused on primary health centers and hospitals. The numbers of hospital beds, doctors, and nurses per 1000 persons have often been treated less as inputs and more as measures of success of the health policy. Health outcomes such as a reduction in cases of...

This study investigates the effects of introducing elections on public goods and redistribution in rural China. A large and unique survey was collected to document the history of political reforms and economic policies and exploit the staggered timing of the introduction of elections for causal...

A unique data-set from Indonesia is analysed to understand what individuals know about the income distribution in their village to test theories such as Jackson and Rogers (2007) that link information aggregation in networks to the structure of the network. The observed patterns are consistent...