Our analysis of a rich representative household survey for Malawi, where patrilineal and matrilineal institutions coexist, suggests that (a) in matrilineal societies the likelihood of cash crop cultivation by a household increases with the extent of land owned (or de facto controlled) by males,...

Income inequality can be measured at different levels of aggregation such as global, continental, international and national levels. Here we consider income inequality at the national level but the focus is on the within country regional inequality. Regional inequality in income distribution in...

We provide a first empirical attempt at understanding the scale and type of skilled migration from the Indian software sector and the consequences for firms experiencing loss of skilled workers. The paper draws on some unique survey evidence of software firms in India. The results are not...

Since 1989, there has been a sharp increase in the role of caste and religion in determining political fortunes at both state and federal levels in India. As a consequence, significant inter-caste and inter-religion differences in earnings have the potential to stall the process of economic...

This paper investigates the determinants of school attendance of children and their motherś working status when the mother decides how to allocate her time and that of her children. A multilevel random effects model is applied to study the motherś participation and the schooling status of her...

What are the performance benefits of investing in human resources in a low-cost labor environment where returns to such investment are widely perceived as negligible? This paper presents a matched pair case study on the performance effect of human resource management systems at two garment...

In the context of strikingly low literacy rates among Indian women and low caste population, the paper explores whether 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...

Caste-based quotas in hiring have existed in the public sector in India for decades. Recently there has been debate about introducing similar quotas in private sector jobs. This paper uses an audit study to determine the extent of caste-based discrimination in the Indian private sector. On...

Trade unionism is a legislative system of organizing workers and raising voices for economic and social goods. As the process of global integration deepens the labour market become more flexible and fragmented, rendering collective organization more and more difficult. In this backdrop, the...