Summary We use experimental data from variants of public good games to test for household efficiency among married couples in rural Uganda. Spouses frequently do not maximise surplus from cooperation and perform better when women are in charge of allocating the common pool. Women contribute less...

Using household panel data for rural India covering 1993–94 and 2004–5, we test whether scheduled castes (SCs) and other minority groups perform better or worse in terms of income when resident in villages dominated by (i) upper castes or (ii) their own group. Theoretically, upper-caste...

Economists have focused on job search and supply-side explanations for network effects in labour transactions. This paper develops and tests an alternative explanation for the high prevalence of network-based labour market entry in developing countries. In our theoretical framework, employers...

In Uttar Pradesh, teams of four are engaged to dig soil under the NREGA programme. In one treatment spouses work together; in the other treatment they work in separate teams. Working with spouses is associated with significantly higher output.

Experimental methods in general, and games in particular, are increasingly significant in development economics, but have had rather a limited and partial engagement with anthropology. Given the multidisciplinary character of development studies, it is timely to consider the potential of...

This paper is not a critique of waterpolicies, or an advocacy of alternatives, but rathersuggests a shift of emphasis in the ways in whichgender analysis is applied to water, development, andenvironmental issues. It argues that feministpolitical ecology provides a generally strongerframework for...

The relevance of experimental games as methods in development research depends crucially on how far the results from the games can be extrapolated to real life, that is, the external validity of those results. The extent to which external validity matters depends on what you want to do with the...