Commodity taxes have three distinct roles: (1) revenue collection, (2) interpersonal redistribution, and (3) resource allocation. The paper presents an integrated treatment of these three concerns in a second-best general equilibrium framework, which leads to the 'generalised Ramsey rule' for...

Commodity taxes have three distinct roles: (1) revenue collection, (2) interpersonal redistribution, and (3) resource allocation. The paper presents an integrated treatment of these three concerns in a second-best general equilibrium framework, which leads to the "generalized Ramsey rule" for...

There has been a significant decline in fertility in many parts of India since the early 1980s. This paper reexamines the determinants of fertility levels and fertility decline, using panel data on Indian districts for 1981 and 1991. We find that women's education is the most important factor...

This paper presents an analysis of the determinants of school participation in rural north India, based on a recent household survey which includes detailed information on school characteristics. School participation, especially among girls, responds to a wide range of variables, including...

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This paper presents a case study of credit transactions in Palanpur, a north Indian village. Drawing on detailed informtion from all borrowers and lenders in the village, we examine a number of issues related to the functioning of rural credit markets. These include the segmentation of the...

During the last few years, there has been a devastating wave of forced evictions of tribal communities from forest land around the country, which needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Unfortunately, recent reports suggest that forced evictions continue in many places, with unrelenting...