Access by the poor to financial resources on favourable terms and conditions is a necessary prerequisite for achieving any developmental goal for an economy. However, in India, about 50 percent of the population are financially excluded from the formal banking network. These households avail...

Recent years have seen increasingly aggressive expansion of the extractive economy in the Andean- Amazonian region, as both hard-rock mining and hydrocarbon frontiers move into new territories and deepen their presence in old ones. In ways reminiscent of the film Avatar, this expansion drives...

The paper constructs a case for arguing that poverty researchers need not worry about inequality (as poverty researchers). It reviews conceptualisations of poverty as essentially relational, a particular reflection of prevailing inequalities. In this approach, people are in poverty because they...

This study argues that patterns, trends and drivers of the efficiency of microfinance institutions (MFIs) depend on the scope of financial sustainability measures and on MFIs’ inclination to either of the dual objectives of financial systems and outreach. A balanced panel data of 164 MFIs for...

The emergence of new powers in the global South is reconfiguring the institutions of global governance. New institutions are being formed and old ones revitalised in a rejuvenation of South- South political and economic cooperation. This paper examines the recently agreed round of negotiations...

This paper sets out to examine the likely benefits accruing to developing countries from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) as it currently stands. In pursuit of this aim, the paper draws from the insights of both the economic and the political economy literatures in pursuit of a more fulsome...

We review the recent empirical literature on global poverty, focusing on key methodological aspects. These include the choice of welfare indicator, poverty line and purchasing power parity exchange rates, equivalence scales, data sources, and estimation methods. We also discuss the importance of...

New theories of how democratic development is likely to emerge within developing countries obscure the effects of popular agency, and of ideas, offering an incomplete view of such historical processes and exaggerating the extent to which a particular sequencing of change is required. Insights...

Political settlements and pacts now feature prominently in donor narratives about transitions from conflict and institutional fragility to peace and prosperity. "Successful transitions" are said to occur when pacts between political and economic elites are deepened, made more democratically...

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India is one of the largest public employment programmes in the developing world. It was introduced by the central government led by Indian National Congress (INC). While its implementation is, in principle, based on demand for work from...