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Kisan Credit Card programme: Expanded access to credit or expansion of credit?

Kisan Credit Card programme - a key reform in agricultural lending in India - has been operational for almost 20 years now. However, there is little empirical evidence of its impact on intended benefi...

  • Articles

Solar micro-grids in India: A reality check

Much of India’s strategy to reduce the use of fossil fuels relies on a transition to solar energy. Based on a survey of potential solar micro-grid customers in Bihar, this column highlights the challe...

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Improving School Governance at Scale: A Randomised Evaluation of the Madhya Pradesh School Quality Assessment Programme

Weak governance is a critical constraint in delivering quality education in developing countries. This project conducts a randomised evaluation of one of the most ambitious recent attempts by a develo...

  • IGC Research on India

Assessing the impact of listing on access to finance for small and medium enterprises

Small and medium enterprises are globally viewed as an engine of economic growth. However, growth in this sector is often limited by access to external finance due, in part, to SMEs being informationa...

  • IGC Research on India

A universal basic income to step up economic reform

In this article, Nimai Mehta, Academic Director of the Global Economics and Business Program at the American University, highlights the political challenge of introducing the wider set of reforms nee...

  • Perspectives

What do we know about the wealthy in India? A pre-liberalisation analysis

Academic attention on the metamorphosis and concentration of wealth has so far excluded poor countries. This column analyses wealth distribution in India, post-independence and pre-liberalisation. It...

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Can the female sarpanch deliver? Evidence from Maharashtra

One-third of all seats in village councils are reserved for women. The government has proposed an increase in quota to 50%, and in the period of reservation from five to 10 years. Based on a survey co...

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Universal basic income for India

In this article, Vijay Joshi, Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, sets out his proposal for a universal basic income (UBI) in India. He contends that deep fiscal adjustment, in co...

  • Perspectives

Nobel prize in Economics 2016: The economy as a nexus of contracts

An important line of research in microeconomics has tried to explain how the economic institutions that underpin the ‘invisible hand of the market’ actually work. The specific economic institution tha...

  • Perspectives

Nobel insights: When it comes to contracts, what's obvious may not be optimal

In a tribute to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, recipients of this year’s Nobel prize in Economics, Rohini Somanathan, Professor of Economics at Delhi School of Economics, outlines their contribution...

  • Perspectives

Are grain procurement shocks inflationary?

Central banks in emerging markets grapple with understanding the inflationary impact of grain procurement shocks because the precise link between the agriculture sector and the rest of the economy may...

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Understaffed, underserved: Human problems of India's public health system

India’s progress in reducing infant and maternal mortality is rather slow. This column shows the extent of shortfall of gynaecologists and auxiliary nurse midwives - the frontline of the battle agains...

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