Individual social capital is increasingly considered to be an important determinant of an individual's health. This study examines the extent to which individual social capital is associated with self-rated health and the extent to which individual social capital mediates t.he relationship...

That poverty and mental health are negatively associated in developing countries is well known among epidemiologists. Whether the relationship is causal or associational, however, remains an open question. This paper aims to estimate the causal effect of poverty on mental health by exploiting a...

Social capital has been shown to be positively associated with a range of health outcomes, yet few studies have explored the association between mother's social capital and children's health. This study examines the relation between mothers' access to social capital (via participation in...

The effect of decentralisation reform on citizen happiness in the context of a developing country remains under-investigated. We study this effect by examining the experience of Indonesia. Data comes from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2007 which comprises face-to-face interviews with the...

ESID Research Associate Laura Routley has produced an annotated bibliography as part of ESID's inception phase. This publication offers a starting point for investigating some of ESID research themes, drawing together what is known about the politics of what works, and laying out current...

This paper examines the take up of Political Economic Analysis (PEA) tools and approaches by development agencies. It charts the emergence of PEA, reviews the embryonic literature on this phenomenon and asks whether this approach assists donors and development agencies to comprehend politics and...

Moving beyond the mantra that 'politics matters', a range of conceptual approaches have recently emerged within international development thinking that seek to capture the specific ways in which politics shapes development. This paper critically assesses whether these approaches, including work...

Abstract Global production networks (GPNs) are the norm in many export sectors of developing world economies like India. High-value crops, including horticultural crops and produce, are seen as candidates for exploiting global market opportunities. Indian agriculture and agribusiness are being...

Service-delivery NGOs are often attacked for abandoning the pursuit of 'alternative development' in favour of 'technocratic' and 'depoliticised' forms of development. Yet some commentators argue that these organisations, through their 'technocratic' interventions, can in fact have progressive...

Abstract Since the late 1970s, NGOs have played an increasingly prominent role in the development sector, widely praised for their strengths as innovative and grassroots-driven organisations with the desire and capacity to pursue participatory and people-centred forms of development and to fill...