In developing countries with weak enforcement institutions, there is implicitly a large reliance on electoral incentives to reduce corruption. In this paper we study the effect of electoral competition on corruption when uncertainty in elections is high, as in many developing countries. Our...

We use the nation-wide policy of randomly allocating village council headships to women to identify the impact of female political leadership on the governance of projects implemented under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India. Using primary survey data, we find more program...

In this paper we study the effect of electoral competition on corruption. Our theory shows that when electoral uncertainty is high, as is expected in many developing countries, there is a U-shaped relationship between electoral competition and corruption. We illustrate the predictions of the...

In spite of widespread acclaims of social audits as low-cost and powerful participatory tools that can bolster awareness and improve public service delivery, a key policy question is what such audits have achieved so far. Using a unique panel data set assembled from official social audit...

In developing countries with weak institutions, there is implicitly a large reliance on elections to instill norms of accountability and reduce corruption. In this paper we show that electoral discipline may be ineffective in reducing corruption when political competition is too high or too low....

This paper proposes new composite measures of relative and dynamic state performance to improve governance and delivery of public programs in developing countries with a federal structure. We rank the performance of 19 major Indian states on two large development programs launched by the Indian...