governments in India, using state-level variation in the timing of administrative decentralization reforms. We find that …

India. Using primary survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women … reservations ; gender ; NREGA ; India …

and how far the interests of the marginalized poor are undermined by the dominant elite consisting mainly of the landed … and the capitalists. We distinguish the dominant elite from the minority elite (i.e., elected women and low caste … education while presence of capitalist elite, as reflected in greater degree of industrialisation enhances it, even in poorer …

Inter- and intra-state disparities in levels of literacy rates in India are striking, especially for the marginalized … elite dominance that discriminates against the minority groups of people and systematically under-invests in mass education …. We experiment with various indirect economic and political measures of elite dominance. Results based on the Indian state …

: judiciary, bureaucracy, and competition policy. To test our framework, we introduce a new panel of institutional reform measures …

. First, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis to compare changes in the probability of working in bureaucracy after … points more likely to work in bureaucracy, and that positive selection on human capital can explain only 12-25 percent of … the campaign, or changes in perceptions of bureaucracy. …

's bureaucracy, which can be centralized or decentralized, and characterize the 'corruptibility' of bureaucrats in each case. Results …