By bridging the gap between domestic savings and investment and bringing the latest technology and management know-how from developed countries, foreign direct investment (FDI) can play an important role in achieving rapid economic growth in developing countries. The fact is that developing...

This paper explores the important but relatively neglected issue of real income transfers, net of the opportunity cost of time, under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. We use representative household level primary data for three states, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and...

We have constructed a composite indicator of anthropometric failure (CIAF) that refines the Waterlow-3 tier classification, using a recent nation-wide household survey. The CIAF and its disaggregation into subcategories of undernourished 5 years old children reveal a grimmer story of child...

Based on data collected from a representative national sample, India Human Development Survey 2005, this paper investigates the links between obesity among children and among adults with a number of socio economic characteristics as well as household and location specific variables. Both child...

This paper discusses the conceptual and operational problems associated with the social audit of a government scheme. It argues that social audits have not performed well in the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme because of three problems. First, conceptually, it has been unable...

This paper presents a brief overview of the extant fiscal situation in South Asian countries. In particular, I emphasize low tax/GDP ratios and inelastic expenditure/GDP ratios which then lead to structurally entrenched fiscal deficits. The paper also reports on the sustainability of fiscal and...

Several tests of targeting accuracy of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREG) focusing on shares of participants by poverty status, their duration of participation, and earnings from it are used. The analysis is based on primary household data collected from three India states,...

The impact of information on corruption and effective implementation is Janus faced. In this paper we use household level data to address the issue of corruption in the NREG program in three states: Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. We discover that at the entry level, information about...

Employment elasticity with respect to agriculture value added in South Asia has weakened in recent years. While crop diversification has grown and value added per hectare also grew, employment growth was sluggish. However, the linkages between farm and non-farm employment remain strong. Drawing...

Various types of natural disasters (e.g. extreme temperatures and floods) became more frequent in 1998-09, relative to 1985-97. However, the deadliness of earthquakes rose sharply and of extreme temperatures more than moderately while that of most others (droughts, floods, storms and wildfires)...