Join the networkFilter by...
Reset all
Publications (432)
Growing income inequality poses a major global challenge, even as the inequality between countries has shrunk due to rapid economic growth in nations like China and India. Both Indonesia and India experienced decades of gradually increasing national income inequality, beginning in the 1980s. The...
Working Paper
pdf
Drawing from two labour market experiments in rural India, we offer insights on the influence of survey design on the measurement of employment. The first experiment contrasts self-reported estimates of employment with proxy-reported estimates from spouses. We find that employment estimates based on...
‘The Number of Countries with High Inequality’ is the World Bank’s newest inequality indicator, one which it says will guide work on its agenda to ‘end poverty on a livable planet’. The indicator uses a country’s most recent Gini score, classifying it as a high inequality country if Gini is 40 or...
Journal Article
The shale gas revolution in the United States induced an unprecedented commodity boom across northwestern India. Leveraging population-based discontinuities in the contemporaneous roll-out of India’s national rural electrification scheme, we show that access to electricity increased total employment...
Journal Article
This paper examines labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach that draws on a job ladder framework. In the framework, I differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal employment and between formal, upper-tier informal and lower-tier informal...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
We examine how politicians and non-politicians in rural India respond to behavioural incentives. Using a modified dictator game, we vary treatments (and incentives) across the nature of interactions, the visibility of actions, and an upfront promise. Under anonymity, politicians and non-politicians...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A Case of Domestic Workers in Delhi
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Journal Article
– Evidence from India
This study analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage — that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. Using a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset and tackling the potential endogeneity of local crime rates...
Working Paper
pdf
– Indonesia and India compared
We examine the nature of labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach drawing from the job ladder framework. In the framework, we differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal and between formal, upper tier informal, and lower tier informal jobs. We...
Blog
More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the world’s biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is seeking a third term in office. And the polls suggest it will achieve this objective.If one...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Theory and some evidence from India
Using the lens of a life-cycle model, we argue that an administrative failure of a wage payment delay in a workfare programme could adversely affect the welfare of the poor through two channels. First, it imposes an implicit consumption tax on the household. Second, it changes the status of labour...
Journal Article
– Exploring the distribution of women's work between income generation, expenditure-saving, and unpaid domestic responsibilities in India
Part of Journal Special Issue
Women’s Work
Working Paper
pdf
The documented under-representation of marginalized groups in business ownership and the labour market is a concerning issue. This study explores how caste disparities in small-firm entrepreneurship impact on firm performance in India, focusing on the informal sector. Our examination shows a...
Working Paper
pdf
Time-use statistics are sensitive to measurement error, especially errors that might be introduced based on whether the informant is reporting on herself or reporting on others in the household. In this paper, we use the nationally representative time-use survey in India and propensity score...
Working Paper
pdf
This study is positioned in two strands of literature—intersectionality and social mobility. It is the first to measure (dis)advantage at the individual level as an outcome of the intersectionality of identities and parental circumstances. By linking circumstances at the parental level with (dis...
Working Paper
pdf
We examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. We distinguish between upper caste and own-group dominance and examine the mechanisms underpinning inequality in...
Working Paper
pdf
There is a dearth of evidence on the evolution of occupational health in the developing world and on the extent to which it has been influenced by (1) the pattern of structural transformation in these economies and (2) integration with global markets.In this study, I compile a rich database on...
Book Chapter
Chapter in book: Wives and Widows at Work: Women’s Labour in Agrarian Bengal, Then and Now Compared with most other Indian states, women’s reported work participation rates have historically been low in West Bengal. This trend is more prominent in rural areas. Historians have tried to explain this...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Experimental evidence from an information dissemination intervention
This study assesses the impact of an information dissemination intervention on the local-level implementation of the rural public works program in India. One key feature of the intervention is to provide information to workers once their wages get credited into their accounts. Using administrative...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from India
This paper analyses the role of tertiary education on rural development. Using census data on villages in India for 2011, we find that skilled workers have had an important impact on rural prosperity. A 1 percentage point rise in the share of the village population with tertiary education raises per...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Rules versus discretionary budgets
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Most studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility in India, using a nationally representative data...
Working Paper
pdf
We investigate the impact of the political representation of minority groups on the incidence of ethnic conflict in India. We code data on Hindu-Muslim violence and Muslim political representation in India and leverage quasi-random variation in legislator religion generated by the results of close...
Working Paper
pdf
The study aims at bridging gaps in both theoretical and empirical literature pertaining to multigenerational persistence. From a theoretical standpoint, it argues that parental altruism is influenced by social heterogeneity rather than income-based heterogeneity. One’s position in the social...
Working Paper
pdf
The extant literature on status-signalling primarily adopts Veblen’s theory of class to caste and racial identities. This study aims to adopt a more suitable theoretical lens that is more relevant not only for class identities, but also for other identities such as caste and race. By viewing...
Working Paper
pdf
Using nationally representative data on employment and earnings, this paper documents a fall in wage inequality in India over the last two decades. It then examines the role played by increasing minimum wages for the lowest skilled workers in India in contributing to the observed decline. Exploiting...
Local governments in India—known as panchayats—are sometimes criticised for failing to deliver benefits earmarked for vulnerable regions or households to the intended recipients. Mis-targeting of benefits is often attributed to political clientelism, where funds are diverted opportunistically to...
Working Paper
pdf
– An interpretative survey
When India became a republic in 1950, the economy was primarily agrarian, with three-fifths of output originating from agriculture. In the sixty years since independence, there has been a significant transformation of economic activity away from agriculture, with less than one-fifth of output now...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of ‘Solar Mamas’ who bring light
This paper examines multiple facets of New Delhi’s development cooperation with countries in Africa and argues that grassroots organizations in India that find innovative, low-cost technological solutions to developmental challenges can help governments and multilateral agencies craft inclusive...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper studies the education gradient associated with health reporting errors for two highly prevalent non-communicable diseases among older adults in India. We leverage a novel data set—the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (2017–18) panel survey—to unpack the sources of health reporting error...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Livelihoods and wellbeing in India during COVID-19
This article studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in Delhi, India.First, the study finds that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic...
In recent decades, India has experienced rapid economic growth alongside radical affirmative action programs enacted since independence. This column explores what we know about the impact on social mobility. While there is some evidence of educational mobility, occupational mobility has not...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Tasks, Skills, and Institutions
Working Paper
pdf
– A systematic literature review
This paper provides a systematic review of quantitative literature investigating the success of affirmative action policies in addressing socio-economic inequalities between ethnic groups in education and employment. We focus on two of the most influential national experiences: caste-based...
Journal Article
– Industrial aspirations and reverse labour migration
The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated processes of labour transition from industrial work to the informal economy, which have always characterized the life of the working poor. This study explores this kind of reverse transition, that is, when the Lewisian dream of having an industrial job comes to an...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from India
I study the impact of school consolidation on enrolment and achievement, using its staggered roll-out in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Across the years 2014, 2016, and 2017, Rajasthan merged many of its grade 1–5 schools with grade 6–10 schools to create grade 1–10 ‘model’ schools. Twenty-three per...
Blog
Ela Ramesh Bhatt, the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, passed away on 2 November 2022. Known as the ‘gentle revolutionary’, Ela-ben (as she is affectionately known) is recognized around the world for her Gandhian values, visionary ideals, pioneering work, and quiet...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper examines the impact of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake on age at marriage and other assortative matching outcomes. Using the 2004–05 wave of the India Human Development Survey and employing a difference-in-differences strategy, we document that the earthquake reduced the age at marriage for...
Working Paper
pdf
– Past and present
The paper examines the existing state of reservations, more specifically, reservation policies and reservations for government jobs for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in India. It discusses the progression and ramifications of these policies and how they have affected the democratization of...
Working Paper
pdf
– A case of domestic workers in Delhi
Studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that poor women have been the worst sufferers in terms of pay cuts and job losses. Women are the hardest hit also at the household level. They have to bear the brunt of constrained household budgets and have also encountered increasing...
Working Paper
pdf
We investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the uneven recovery until December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the average household incomes dropped sharply during the...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from India
I evaluate the impact of the right to education from the passing of the Right to Education Act in India in 2009. This Act guaranteed free education to children aged 6–14 years, including children with disabilities. Given that the school participation deficit associated with disability is large, I...
Working Paper
pdf
– Interrogating capacity and response to COVID-19 in West Bengal
COVID-19 has brought to the fore the issue of state preparedness in mitigating health emergencies. This paper problematizes the received wisdom of greater state capacity in mitigating the severity of the pandemic. Based on a case study of West Bengal, a subnational state of India, it shows that...
Working Paper
pdf
The affirmative action policy in India came into practice because of the generations of struggle undergone by the untouchable castes and other backward classes, who were historically excluded from education and administration. As society changed, it was inevitable that the vulnerable groups who had...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from India
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders’ quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical to understand...
Working Paper
pdf
– Guidelines for NEP implementation
This paper documents the state of elementary education in India and China since the 1960s, key lessons for India from China’s shift in focus from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’, and evidence-based guidelines for effective implementation of India’s New Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). The divergent policy...
Working Paper
pdf
– Uttar Pradesh’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic
A rich and growing literature illustrates the paradox of COVID-19 responses by governments across the world. States with higher levels of authority and capacity have struggled to respond effectively to COVID-19, while states with low capacity and authority have been more effective in containing the...
Displaying 48 of 432 results