Affirmative action has been at the heart of public policies towards the socially disadvantaged in India. Compensatory discrimination policies which have been adopted for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) since independence were recommended for Other Backward Classes (OBC) by...

This paper analyzes the determinants of rural poverty in India, contrasting the situation of scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) households with the non-scheduled population. The incidence of poverty in SC and ST households is much higher than among non-scheduled households. By...

The predominant type of firms in developing countries is small family firms and the self-employed in the informal sector. Very few family firms make the transition to larger firms employing non-family labour. In this paper, we examine the reasons for the low presence of firms employing...

Do ruling parties positively discriminate in favour of their own constituencies in allocating public resources? If they do, do they gain electorally in engaging in such a practice? This paper tests whether partisan alignment exists in the allocation of funds for India's largest social protection...

This paper analyzes the determinants of rural poverty in India, contrasting the situation of the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST) households with the non-scheduled population. The incidence of poverty among SC and ST households is significantly higher than non-scheduled households....

We examine the efficacy of a popular anti-poverty programme, namely the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of the Government of India. We argue that a chronic friction of wage payment delay in this flagship programme could adversely affect the welfare of the poor through two...