Several high-level reports have raised the concern that low-income countries, especially in Africa, are experiencing premature de-industrialization. The concern is that they are growing without transforming. Have the latecomers to development missed the boat? Although these concerns are well...

This study investigates the impact of the Golden Quadrilateral highway project on the urban and rural growth of Indian manufacturing. The Golden Quadrilateral project upgraded the quality and width of 5,846 km of roads in India. The study uses a difference-in-difference estimation strategy to...

The transformation of India's unorganized sector is important to its modernization, growth, and attainment of regional economic equality. This paper documents several key facts about India's unorganized sector in manufacturing and services. First, the unorganized sector is large, accounting for...

Despite rapid economic growth, gender disparities in women's economic participation have remained deep and persistent in India. What explains these huge gender disparities? Is it poor infrastructure, limited education, and gender composition of the labor force and industries? Or is it...

In the last two decades the Indian economy has been growing unabatedly, with memories of the Hindu rate of growth rapidly fading. But this unprecedented growth has also resulted in widening spatial disparities. While cities such as Hyderabad have emerged as major clusters of high development,...

This paper examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. The data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts. Despite oDesk minimizing many of the frictions that diaspora connections have traditionally overcome, diaspora...

This paper examines the specialization and diversity of manufacturing industries within Indian districts. Prior to India's recent economic growth and liberalization, specialization levels in 1989 were substantially higher than similar metrics calculated for the United States. From 1989 to 2010,...

This paper analyzes the scale and productivity consequences of varied input use in Indian manufacturing using detailed plant-level data. Counts of distinct material inputs are higher in urban settings than in rural locations, unconditionally and conditional on plant size, and they are also...

This paper examines the interaction between formal (organized) and informal (unorganized) plants in the manufacturing sector in India. How has the size and productivity of the plants in the organized sector affected the plants in the unorganized sector? How have informal plants affected formal...