Can inequalities in private school access be bridged through a government mandate? Enacted in 2009, India's “Right to Education” mandated almost all private schools to admit at least 25 percent of children in their entry class from “economically weak and socially disadvantaged” groups....

Trends over the last 25 years suggest that nearly 80% of the social sector spending has come from state budgets. Taken together with other policy developments in the country, the centre's role in financing social welfare, including elementary education, is likely to decline further. Analysing...

Year 2016 witnessed massive agitations by ‘dominant' castes such as Marathas in Maharashtra, Jats in Haryana and Patidars in Gujarat demanding reservation in education and government jobs. Though several commentaries have attempted to identify factors contributing to such demands, there has...

Recent years have seen significant changes in the landscape of elementary education (EE) in India. Yet, updated estimates on public and private expenditure on EE are not available. This paper fills the gap by providing a methodology and estimates of per student public expenditure on children...

This paper is the first attempt to rigorously evaluate the short term effects of the 'Janani Suraksha Yojna' (Safe Motherhood Scheme), a nationwide conditional cash transfer program in India, launched in April 2005. Under the scheme, a woman delivering her child in a medical facility is provided...

Despite widespread and substantial private expenditure on private tutoring outside the formal school system in many developing countries, not much is known about their effects on learning outcomes. The main challenge in estimating such an effect is that the decision to send the child for private...

How significant was the shift in the economic growth performance that occurred in the 1950s, relative to the shift that is supposed to have occurred in the 1980s? If one were to identify the single most significant break date in India's growth performance, does it turn out to be 1951-52 or...

With a view to reduce high levels of maternal and neonatal mortality, the National Rural Health Mission launched the Janani Suraksha Yojana in 2005. This is an innovative conditional cash transfer programme to provide monetary incentives to women to deliver in medical facilities. This study...

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are an increasingly popular tool for incentivizing behavior. This paper evaluates impact of one of the largest CCTs in the world, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) in India, on institutional deliveries. Maternal mortality is high in India and JSY aims to reduce it by...