This Focus Note explores why this remains the case— even after significant efforts to narrow the financial inclusion gender gap—and what can be done to achieve equality in this sphere. Since closing the gap will require contextually adapted solutions, Ghana and Tanzania were selected as two...

We study residential segregation and access to public services across 1.5 million urban and rural neighborhoods in India. Muslim and Scheduled Caste segregation in India is high by global standards, and only slightly lower than Black-White segregation in the U.S. Within cities, public facilities...

This paper evaluates whether environmental education can shift household behavior through intergenerational transmission of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. We implement an activity-based program in Patna, India, and conduct a randomized experiment with 1,545 child-parent pairs assigned to...

This study provides sector-level insights to inform energy strategies consistent with SDG 7 and SDG 13. Drawing on a panel of 43 emerging and developing economies (1998-2020), we estimate a GMM panel vector autoregression (PVAR) linking foreign direct investment, sectoral GDP, energy demand, and...

Emerging economies confront unprecedented challenges mobilizing finance for green industrial transitions while maintaining development trajectories. This paper examines implementation effectiveness across India, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia-major economies representing diverse political...

This paper analyses the role of loan guarantees in supporting the internationalisation of Indian firms through outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) since the mid-2000s. Despite a persistent domestic savings-investment gap and recurrent current account deficits, Indian OFDI has expanded...

Mehmood et al. (2023) estimate the effect of Ramadan fasting hours on judicial decisions using case-level data from Pakistan and India. Using exogenous variation in fasting intensity due to the Islamic lunar calendar and latitude, the authors find that Muslim judges are significantly more likely...

Does "full vertical alignment" - political congruence across national, state, and local tiers - drive economic development? Using a sharp regression discontinuity design based on close state elections in India, we estimate the causal effects of multilevel alignment on growth, inequality, and...

This paper contributes to the debate on identity politics by examining whether the religious composition of voters predicts electoral outcomes. Focusing on West Bengal, India, we use assembly constituency-level data from six elections between 2011 and 2024 to examine how the Muslim population...

We examine the impact of rural road connectivity on economic and novel governance outcomes in the context of the world's largest rural road program, India's PMGSY. Using a novel village-level survey designed around PMGSY's rollout, we exploit quasi-random variation in road placement to estimate...

India has achieved near-universal electrification, yet large inequalities persist in the reliability of the electricity supply. Combining high-resolution satellite-based measures of electricity reliability - defined as the share of nights with detectable illumination - with village-level census...

Die Außenpolitik Indiens ist von einem Paradox geprägt. Das Land hat in letzter Zeit auf internationaler Bühne an Einfluss gewonnen, zugleich aber im regionalen Kontext an Bedeutung verloren. Seit Mitte der 2010er Jahre konnte China seine wirtschaftliche und politische Position in Südasien...

Fünf Jahre nach dem blutigen Militärputsch und inmitten eines Bürgerkrieges haben in Myanmar Wahlen stattgefunden. Sie waren weder frei noch fair, noch wurde bei ihrer Durchführung auch nur versucht, den Schein demokratischer Mindeststandards zu wahren. Der Hauptzweck der Wahlen war von...

Dreißig Jahre nach Gründung der Zollunion mit der Europäischen Union (EU) sieht Ankara durch die Freihandelsabkommen der EU mit Drittstaaten, zuletzt mit Indien, wachsende wirtschaftliche Risiken. Während die Verhandlungen zum EU-Indien-Freihandelsabkommen Ende Januar abgeschlossen wurden...

This paper examines whether Bihar's 2016 alcohol prohibition generated spillover effects on household adoption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a primary cooking fuel. Although clean cooking lies outside the policy's intended scope, prohibition may affect fuel choice by altering household...