Offshore wind energy holds promising potential as an alternative source of energy for a country like India, which continues to be land deprived and faces increasing difficulty in acquiring land for energy. While some scholarly efforts have focused on the Indian context, there is a dearth of...

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of information and communications technology (ICT) not only for the economy but also for human well-being. However, the investment gap in ICT infrastructure has been growing and is expected to reach more than $30 billion by 2040. We argue that one...

This research aimed to examine the factors affecting the participation of female rural-urban migrants in online marketplaces, and the welfare gains and their distribution from their participation. Our analysis was based on a unique data set of rural households, villages, and rural-urban migrants...

Infrastructure has always been a fundamental driver of long-term economic growth, but in recent decades information and communication technology (ICT) has supported and accelerated the growth of the global economy in ways beyond the imagining of our ancestors. This study examines the role of ICT...

The Mahabub Hossain Panel Data (MHPD) was initiated in 1988 and maintained by and named after the late Dr. Mahabub Hossain, a well-known agricultural and development economist who led a number of reputed organizations in Bangladesh (Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and BRAC) and in...

One of the main challenges in low-income Asia and the Pacific countries is users' willingness to pay for water services. In contrast, investors and private operators in the water sector prefer a high rate of return. This has often led to the failure of public-private partnerships for water...

The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) region has historically been an important route for global trade - connecting Asia to Europe (and vice versa) and beyond through the ancient Silk Road before the evolution of maritime trade and commerce in the 1500s. The Asian Development...

Despite the well-documented benefits of improved sanitation and washing facilities, a considerable number of people, even in middle-income countries, still lack access to modern sanitation and home-based bathing facilities. This paper leverages household budget survey data from two Central Asian...

Development economists have considered physical infrastructure to be a precondition for industrialization and economic development. Yet, two issues remain to be addressed in the literature. First, while proper identification of the causal effectiveness of infrastructure in reducing poverty is...

Given that India's urban areas contribute to nearly two-thirds of its gross domestic product, even though they account for only 31% of the country's population, they have been rightly called the engines of India's growth. In this paper, I answer the following questions: What are the economic...