Many countries adopted safety net programs to deal with the food crisis of 2008. However, such programs are often beset with targeting errors, inefficiencies, and fraud. Despite this, there is no systematic comparative analysis of safety nets. The objective of this paper is to identify generic...

Many countries adopted safety net programs to deal with the food crisis of 2008. However, such programs are often beset with targeting errors, inefficiencies, and fraud. Despite this, there is no systematic comparative analysis of safety nets. The objective of this paper is to identify generic...

This paper explores the performance of rural governance institutions (Gram Panchayats) in Maharashtra, India. The results of a detailed set of household and village surveys we conducted point to a stunningly robust and participatory democratic process: Elections are freely contested, fairly...

This paper investigates the welfare effects on the South of quality-biased technical progress in North's export sector. North exports a quality-differentiated good. while South exports a homogeneous good. We find that if northern technical progress is quality-neutral, the South must gain, but if...

India's growth and poverty performance over the last three decades has been a subject of great curiosity. Unlike the East Asian countries, India's growth spurt is not associated with exceptionally high domestic savings or foreign capital inflows or manufacturing exports. So what triggered the...

Successful rural growth episodes in India indicate a process of growth and diversification that is based on the development of producer services. A simple theoretical model of this process is sketched to suggest impediments to such a process of growth and thus to offer a possible explanation of...