There is a growing belief in development policy circles that participation by local communities in basic service delivery can promote development outcomes. A central plank of public policy for improving primary education services in India is the participation of village education committees...

This article presents data on the evolution of top incomes and wages for 1922-2000 in India using individual tax return data. The data show that the shares of the top 0.01 percent, 0.1 percent, and 1 percent in total income shrank substantially from the 1950s to the early to mid-1980s but then...

Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as key to improving their efficiency. In India, the current government flagship program on universal primary education organizes community members, specifically locally elected leaders and parents of...

Many developing country governments determine eligibility for anti-poverty programs using censuses of household assets. Does this distort subsequent reporting of, or actual purchases of, those assets? We ran a nationwide experiment in Indonesia where, in randomly selected provinces, the...

This paper tests the effectiveness of an entertainment education television series, MTV Shuga, aimed at providing information and changing attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. Using a simple model, the paper shows that "edutainment" can work through an individual or a social channel....

We examine the impact of offering conditional cash transfer (CCT) beneficiaries the choice to receive cash transfers in bank accounts instead of cash. We investigate the effects on savings behavior and downstream outcomes such as assets and trust. We find, on average, no significant impact on...

Macroeconomic concepts and theories are among the most valuable for policymakers. Yet up to now, there has been a wide gap between undergraduate courses and the professional level at which macroeconomic policy is practiced. In addition, PhD-level textbooks rarely address the needs of a policy...

Populist movements, parties and leaders have gained influence in many countries, disrupting long-established patterns of party competition, impugning the legitimacy of representative institutions and sometimes actively weakening or coarsening government capabilities. By positing an acute...

This paper revisits the standard explanations of the violent Chilean protests of late 2019, and in particular their exclusive focus on the role of inequality, which in fact had been falling prior to the emergence of unrest. Instead, we suggest that blame may lie in a crisis of trust in...

The authors study how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree...