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What are the effects of biometric and digital technologies on social protection for the poor in India? Drawing on ethnographic research from rural Tamil Nadu, this paper presents evidence of how new technologies are experienced by beneficiaries of the Public Distribution System (PDS), and analyses the impacts of technology innovations on transparency, exclusion and mediation. The authors focus on the implementation of 'smartcards,' new digitised and Aadhaar-enabled ration cards, introduced in ration shops across Tamil Nadu in 2017. They first document how digitised smartcards and mobile text messages transform transparency for beneficiaries by introducing new opacities and information gaps. They then demonstrate how a lack of transparency (re)produces forms of exclusion that remain a challenge under the automated PDS. Finally, the paper highlights how novel forms of kin and non-kin mediation play a mitigating role in accessing PDS, and constitute a vital part of the infrastructure underpinning social welfare delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether institutional change brought about by financial inclusion results in sustainable debt management by households. We analyze household indebtedness and its various dimensions using primary data collected from 600 households across 3 districts of rural Kerala in India. We find that more than half of the sample households are indebted. Using flow and stock analysis, we assess the repayment capacity of households. While the flow analysis based on interest and income comparison shows that debt is sustainable, the stock analysis indicates an alarming debt situation considering the illiquid nature of land assets. Both agricultural and non-agricultural households appeared to be caught in a debt trap. Our econometric analyses show that socio-economic factors like education and age of the household head, main source of household income and household asset value without land, are significant determinants of household level indebtedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I propose a different classificatory lens to analyse the collective action of civil rights groups in India. To date, this collective action has been variously classified as 'non-party groups,' 'macro initiatives' for grassroots groups, 'action groups or support groups,' as part of an emergent new left citizen's initiatives, but mostly as a 'social movement' or 'human rights movement.' These differences in classification are not due to a considered disagreement; but because this activism is acutely understudied. Examining the history of such groups and the activist interviews I conducted, I argue for a re-classification of civil rights activism as ally activism i.e. they are allies of several, rather than a party to any particular social movement. Ally activism needs to be understood on its own terms to reveal their role in democratic deepening within South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the hugely successful expansion of South-South Cooperation since the new millennium. For all the achievements, variations and change over the 1950s-late 1990s, 'SSC 1.0' was characterised by relative neglect within the 'international' development community, and by many orthodox and critical scholars. In the chronological schema of the paper, 'SSC 2.0' refers to the period of remarkable expansion from the early 2000s to the present. The emergence of 'SSC 3.0', I suggest, is currently revealed by a discernible set of shifts driven in large part by the expansionary successes of SSC 2.0, as well as other turns in the global political economy. Three contemporary trends are identified: cooperation narratives that are increasingly 'muscular', nationalistic and pragmatic; difficulties sustaining claims to 'non-interference' in partner countries; and the further erosion of ideational and operational distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of a large-scale workfare program, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), on child marriage in India. We use two rounds of data from the District Level Household & Facility Surveys and estimate a difference-in-differences model by comparing changes in child marriage rates between a cohort of young women and a cohort of older women before and after program implementation. We find that NREGS is associated with an increase in the probability of marriage before 18 of 2.7 percentage points, or 10.6%. Our results are similar when using different definitions of child marriage and are also robust to using a hazard model and a model with program intensity at the district level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the intergenerational effects following the positive changes in women's inheritance rights in India. Using the Indian Human Development Survey data for rural India and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the property rights reform significantly empowered women through increased education. However, we find no intergenerational effect of the reform on children's education. We explore two potential mechanisms to explain these results: the role of status conflict among spouses and that of a child's birth-order and gender. Given that a woman's bargaining power may depend on her relative position to that of her husband, we investigate this channel and find a significant decrease in children's education in households where fathers are less educated than mothers. Accounting for a child's birth-order and gender, we find no evidence of son-preference through the education channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarship on innovation hitherto has prioritized exchange value, scalability and large scale commercialization, overlooking the other significant human centric values discussed in 'value theory'. Consequently, innovations in the informal economy are often undermined due to their inability to generate exchange values. This paper identifies and examines the suitability of the nuanced set of values discussed in value theory for informal sector grassroots innovations. Based on ten years of ethnographic research in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir in India, we find that these innovations generate a diverse set of values, ranging from use value to socially embedded reciprocal exchange value to different forms of relational and non-relational intrinsic values. At a juncture when strengthening alternative innovation approaches occupies a priority, these findings have important bearing on innovation policy scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the promise of inclusive social protection central to India’s Aadhaar scheme, a national initiative using biometric information to allocate unique identification numbers to Indian residents. Aadhaar has reached over one billion people and promises to expand access to basic identification, improve enrolment in social protection and financial inclusion schemes, curb leakages, reduce corruption and address other gaps in India’s social protection architecture. However, the establishment of a national identification scheme does not of itself guarantee social protection. This paper assesses Aadhaar’s aims to achieve inclusive social protection through personal, civic, functional and entrepreneurial inclusion, and explores whether Aadhaar indeed fulfils these goals. Although it is too early conclusively to evaluate Aadhaar as a transformative contributor to social protection in India, there is much to be learned for transnational social protection from the scheme’s efforts to create a more inclusive system and to address the critical questions of privacy and state surveillance at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the role of finance constraints in determining the lack of transition of firms in India from very small family firms, which are the predominant type of firms in the informal sector, into larger informal firms that employ non-family labour. Using a rich firm-level data-set drawn from nationally representative surveys of the Indian informal manufacturing sector, this paper tests for the role played by finance constraints in firm transition in the informal sector at the firm and district level. There is evidence that the difficulty that firms face in accessing external finance acts as a significant constraint to small firm growth in the informal sector. Looking at data from India's districts, it is found that the financial development in a given district increases the likelihood that firms in the district will make the transition from household enterprises into non-household enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At various points in its existence, the Indian state has deployed technologies to govern the nation. Recently, the state has undertaken a number of large-scale projects to make use of digital technology. The most controversial of these is the Unique Identity (UID) project, which is registering biometric, along with demographic, information about residents. This paper seeks to understand what is at stake politically in this technological intervention. It aims to explore the political logics and consequences of such a biometric system. It argues that UID re-imagines the economy and the state–citizen relationship as a series of transactions. Theoretically, the main thrust of this paper is to understand the “general economy of power”, as Michel Foucault calls it, which is unfolding in India around the issues of capitalist growth, inequality, social protection and terrorism—and UID signals the technological potential for the convergence of these concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper is to identify factors that affect maternal health in rural India. This is important given the high maternal and infant mortality rates in India, particularly rural India. The paper will focus particularly on whether and how the culture and practice of son preference (which is well documented in South Asia) has had an impact on maternal health. Assuming parents do not have access to knowledge about the sex of their unborn child, this paper examines whether a pregnant mother's maternal care (prior to giving birth) is affected by the presence of son(s) from earlier pregnancies. Additionally, the paper will analyze the impact of mothers' autonomy on their maternal health. The results show that existence of sons reduces the likelihood of receiving maternal care for successive pregnancies. Maternal autonomy, especially the mother's education, increases the likelihood of receiving maternal care. The results have meaningful policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the recent advocacy of subjective wellbeing in policy evaluation with an investigation of food security in rural Chhattisgarh, India, in 2010-2013. Conceptually, it suggests the need to move beyond a primary focus on happiness to consider a broader-based investigation into people's subjective perceptions. In particular, it introduces a multi-domain model with some affinities to the capability approach, which asks what people think and feel themselves able to be and do. Methodologically, it suggests that the primary reliance on quantitative measures should be complemented by more qualitative approaches to give a more rounded appreciation of how people view their lives. Three approaches are presented: qualitative analysis of interview text; statistical analysis comparing a single measure of happiness with a broader, domain-based approach; and mixed qualitative and quantitative data generated from an individual case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to study market (outside the home) and non-market (domestic) child labour in rural India and see how this is influenced by a mother's participation in the labour force. The paper also investigates whether this participation has a different impact on sons as compared with daughters. The empirical analysis is based on household survey data from rural households in northern and eastern India. The results show that a mother's labour is not a substitute for, but a complement to, market and non-market child labour, while a mother's education, along with the father's education, reduces the likelihood of child labour. Gender-based analysis lends support to existing literature regarding the gender bias in domestic child labour. Additionally, a mother's participation in the labour force is found to increase the likelihood of daughters working outside the home as well. Thus, an increase in the opportunity for mothers to work in the labour-intensive agricultural sector makes child labour more likely. The results of this paper have important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While India is an increasingly attractive destination for foreign capital, the country is also becoming a significant source of outflows. Many Indian enterprises view outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) as an important dimension of their corporate strategies. This paper presents some data on the magnitude and composition of Indian OFDI. It also discusses the rationale for and empirical determinants of overseas acquisitions by Indian companies. The empirical findings suggest that OFDI from India is not entirely different from that of other countries in that they are motivated by many common factors. There is evidence, however, that Indian OFDI is more market- and resource-seeking than OFDI from most other countries. The paper concludes with a broader discussion of the impact of the global rise of Indian companies on the Indian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade-and-a-half, sex workers in Kolkata (India) red-light districts have involved themselves in a STD-HIV health project and, at the same time, formed an autonomous organization to protest against exploitation and to challenge social norms that ostracize them. This paper examines how this marginalized group, who previously saw themselves as socially alienated victims, came to reinvent themselves as social actors, endowed with a sense of collective rights and capacity. The analytical focus is on the transformation of the worldview and self-perception of sex workers, and on the specific aspects of the development intervention that facilitated this transition. The following elements were found to be most significant: (a) the establishment of an egalitarian organizational culture in the health project; (b) the introduction of a dialogic educational programme; and (c) the development of a culture of political activism among sex workers, animated by a notion of their right to protest against injustice and inequality. The study draws attention to the change of attitudes and identity as the key factor propelling the engagement of the socially excluded and the poor in development processes and public action. By analysing this largely neglected theme in development literature, this paper contributes to debates on the question of participation from a hitherto under-explored perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions can small suppliers and small-firm-dominated industries comply with stringent standards without compromising their trade competitiveness? This question is at the heart of a controversial debate about the emergence of environmental standards as a new variable in global trade and market access. There are few documented cases of success and the literature remain sceptical about the ability of small supplier firms to comply with stringent environmental regulations. This paper draws on the Indian leather industry`s relatively effective compliance with two German bans on Azo dyes and PCPs to argue that the supposed trade-off between environmental compliance and export competitiveness is not inevitable, Critical to India `s compliance with the PCP and Azo dye ban was not merely private governance mediated by lead firms and global buyers but also the institutionalization of compliance by the Indian state, which became deeply involved in diffusing the new standards. The paper examines how and why the state got involved in ways that generated—and sustained—a process of negotiated collective action and broad-based environmental compliance by a small-firm-dominated sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the impact of reforms on manufacturing efficiency in India. The sector chosen-the cotton textile industry in India-is a very large employer and exporter and also has considerable historical significance. Its response to the reforms therefore is being watched with some concern. The paper concludes that while there was considerable dispersion in efficiency levels before the reforms, this dispersion has decreased since the reforms. To analyse this, we estimate a best practice frontier for the industry and then measure efficiency as the distance from this frontier. We find that efficiency has increased because the reforms have influenced other factors such as market shares, exports and imports and capital-labour ratios. Our results also indicate that geography-the location of the firm within a state and its proximity to a major urban centre-influences the efficiency levels of firms within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary economists and demographers have discussed the phenomenon of child labour using a family strategy approach, focusing their attention primarily on family resources, family constraints and the cost-benefit calculus of the family head. Diverging somewhat from this conventional path and starting from the vantage point of human security and development, this study makes a case for considering child well-being as a separate problem of its own, much as it is related to family welfare. The paper argues that non-schooling and work of children reflect not only parental income constraints but also, more importantly, the paucity of publicly provided educational opportunities; they are the products of not just parental utilitarian calculus but of deficiencies in public policy and social institutions. With a particular empirical focus on India, it demonstrates that the burden of child labour as well as the onus of educational deprivation are disproportionately borne by different population groups in the country. The paper concludes that in considering strategies to combat child labour, the school reform point of view and correlatively the expansion of an educational opportunities perspective should enter the current political and policy consciousness in a significant way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimation of research production functions has produced rich and useful results for developed countries in the past. This paper makes a pioneering attempt to estimate the same in the context of a less-developed country (LDC) (India). The objective is to examine the process of technology generation and learning in Indian industry. The existing literature recognizes two principal characteristics of technological activities in LDCs. First, their R&D effort is geared towards "minor" as opposed to "major" innovations. Second, technological learning constitutes an integral part of their research thrust. This paper attempts to capture these characteristics in a rigorous econometric framework by estimating a comprehensive research production function incorporating the role of learning. We use Indian firm-level in-house R&D data for two sectors: pharmaceuticals and electronics. Our study not only captures the role of learning in determining research effort and research output, but also re-examines some of the existing hypotheses relating to the effects of firm size, technology import and ownership. We find that the two sectors display two distinct learning trajectories, but in both cases learning proves to be crucially important in technology generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates Indian capital flight at US $88 billion (in 1997 dollars) over the 1971–97 period, a sum that is roughly 20% of the US $448 billion real external debt disbursed to the country over the same time period. There is also evidence of a strong year-to-year correlation between debt inflows and flight-capital outflows. The paper explores the nature of this association between capital flight and external debt in the Indian economy. An analysis by Boyce (1992, World Development, 20, pp. 335–349) for the Philippines revealed the presence of contemporaneous bi-directional causality, in other words, a financial revolving door relationship between external debt and capital flight in that economy. The research question addressed by this paper is whether such a financial revolving door relationship exists in India, given its higher level of external indebtedness and lower debt-to-GNP ratio as compared with the Philippines. Utilizing a simultaneous equation model to examine the association between capital flight and external debt in the Indian economy, the paper confirms the existence of a financial revolving door relationship between the two endogenous variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the disinvestment of shares of public sector enterprises (PSEs) in India since 1991. The poor performance of PSEs made reform increasingly urgent in the context of the broader strategy of the liberalization of the economy to deal with the perceived weaknesses of India's development strategy. The paper argues that the main aim of disinvestment has been to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement, at the cost of the restructuring and rationalization of PSEs in particular and the public sector in general. The process of disinvestment has been a complex one and has not been free of criticism. Alleged under-pricing of shares sold, lack of transparency, limited public support for disinvestment and the absence of a common set of objectives between the Government of India and the Disinvestment Commission have been major problems. In many respects, India provides a checklist of how not to disinvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has long struggled with persistent problems of sex-selective abortions and the neglect of female children. In 1996, the Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques Act was implemented to stop the practices of prenatal sex determination and selective abortions. This paper examines whether the law has been effective in reducing gender imbalance, and in turn potentially exacerbated post-natal discrimination against newborn girls. Using retrospective birth history data from the Indian District Level Household Survey (2002–2004), we exploit a natural experiment involving a variation in the timing of the law across states. We analyse the differential impact of the law on newborn sex ratios and infant mortality rates. Our findings indicate that the law significantly increased the likelihood of a female birth, improving female-to-male sex ratios at birth. We also find that it was generally associated with no change in the relative mortality of infant girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationing and its implication on accuracy of targeting of benefits to the intended beneficiaries in an anti-poverty programme is an essential component of its evaluation. Taking nationally representative data for 2009–2010 and 2011–2012, this paper evaluates the performance of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India in terms of targeting of benefits to the poorer households. It attempts to find if households, which did not get work after demanding are poorer than the ones, who got work and then explores, if the non-poor households got work for higher number of days under the programme in comparison to the poorer ones. Findings from the regressions, which control for the potential sample selection bias show that the poorer households in terms of monthly consumption expenditure have lesser probability of getting work in both the years, though traces of improvement in targeting is observed in 2011–2012. Poorer households are also found to be significantly associated with lower days of work in 2009–2010 compared to the relatively better-off ones. The results lay emphasis on the need to reduce rationing and generate awareness on the basic entitlements of the programme along with higher accountability and vigilance for better targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2007–2008, short-term migrants (STMs) constituted 4.35% of the rural workforce in India and a total of 9.25 million rural households included STMs. Using nationally representative data for rural India, this paper examines differences in consumption expenditure across households with and without a household member who is a STM. We use an instrumental variable approach to control for the presence of a STM in a household. We find that households with a STM have lower monthly per capita consumption expenditure and monthly per capita food expenditure compared to households without a STM. STMs are not unionised, they work in the unorganised sector, they do not have written job contracts, and state governments are yet to ensure that the legislation protecting them is properly enforced. This could be one of the reasons why we do not observe higher levels of expenditure in households with such migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Today, India is an important player in garment export. Production is highly “localised” and scattered across the subcontinent. It is organised in industrial clusters, with distinct production and labour practices and product specialisations. Product cycles involve numerous ancillary activities, and are often decentralised from main urban tailoring hubs. They connect different realms and spaces of production and labour, and different clusters. This paper explores how this organisational layout severely limits the impact of old and new corporate social responsibility (CSR) labour projects and regulations. It does so by looking at the case of the National Capital Region and one of its satellite embroidery centres, Bareilly, in Uttar Pradesh. In particular, it reveals the contradictory nature of new CSR projects focusing on homeworkers. The arguments developed here are not only a criticism of global buyers' approaches to labour standards. They also more broadly question the ability to elaborate meaningful standards within decentralised production regimes, deconstructing over-optimistic images of India as a “rising power”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper analyses growing inequality in the rising powers, concentrating on the situation in China and India. It describes the various processes that are currently underway to reduce inequality in these economies. These processes include a combination of tightening the labour market, as best seen in China, increasing rural productivity and implementing government measures to boost basic rural incomes in all such countries. Reductions in inequality in the emerging economies have a global macro-economic effect of increasing consumption, thus counteracting the current global slowdown. They also have the benefit of creating more space at the bottom for poorer economies to take up more of the world's low-skill production, as the emerging economies themselves move up to higher skill production and exports. This sequential upgrading is being driven by the growth of emerging economy markets and by wage increases in these economies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the gender-related wage differentials in the rural and urban sectors of the Indian economy are analysed. The hypotheses that there is a glass-ceiling effect—a greater wage gap at the top end of the wage-distribution range—and a sticky-floor effect—a wider wage gap at the bottom are examined. Findings show evidence of the glass-ceiling effect in the rural sector and evidence of the sticky-floor effect in the urban sector. Using a counterfactual decomposition method, the raw wage gap is decomposed to identify the contributions of characteristics and coefficients. The results reveal the presence of labour–market discrimination against women. Furthermore, women at the lower end of the wage-distribution spectrum face more discrimination than those at the higher end of the range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of undernutrition in India (and elsewhere) have focused exclusively on interpersonal inequalities, and estimates of the magnitude of inter-group inequalities are unavailable. A focus on “horizontal”, or group-based, inequalities offers vital policy insights that would be lost in an approach based purely on interpersonal inequalities. We therefore apply the group analogues of Atkinson's index and the Gini coefficient to shed light on the disproportionate burden of undernourishment borne by rural and historically vulnerable caste groups. Furthermore, the prominent determinants of inter-group disparities are identified through Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analysis. The paper calls for explicit targeting of backward castes across the country and improved inter-sectoral collaboration to ensure equitable access to education, health care and water and sanitation, particularly across underdeveloped regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether out-of-pocket health expenditure affects the composition of household consumption. Based on Indian data, conditional Engel curves for 10 broad categories of goods and services, namely food, intoxicants, fuel, clothing and footwear, education, entertainment, travel, rent, durables and other goods have been estimated. Conditional Engel curves show whether the share of a particular good is increased or decreased in household consumption due to health expenditure. The findings suggest that poor households decrease the share of clothing and education and increase the share of food, fuel and travel. It has also been found that households from less developed states and from states with lower public health expenditure were more affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the economic performance of 15 major states in India, and examines whether initially disparate states displayed any tendency towards convergence in real per capita income during the period 1960/61–2006/07. Though the growth performance of the states has improved in the post-reform period, since 1991 the states have diverged in per capita income. The states following different steady-state paths are classified into three clubs—one convergent and two non-convergent. The regional divergence and club convergence are explained in terms of interstate variations in physical and social infrastructures, state-level policy reforms, foreign direct investment flows and economic structure. The poorly performing states could improve their relative economic position by undertaking investments in physical and social infrastructures, and speeding up the reform process by liberalizing investment and infrastructure policies. As industry and services are the major sources of regional divergence, any effort to reduce regional imbalance must focus primarily on these two sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the relationship is assessed between possessing information on, gaining access to and the efficacy of delivery of India's national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGA) in three states. The results suggest that the link between information, access and the delivery of the scheme is not straightforward. Information can increase the propensity for the programme to be accessed by those who are not its primary target population, and can enhance efficacy of delivery to such beneficiaries. Lack of information, on the other hand, decreases the ability of citizens, particularly the acutely poor, to benefit from the scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advance of the human development perspective has seen education being established not just as a means of development but as an end in itself. This has created a case for focusing on mass education, even if it implies lower growth rates in the initial years. Such an approach is bound to influence the very pattern of development over the long run. For one, a sustained emphasis on mass education within a framework that assures adequate social security could increase the well-being of workers to a point where it affects the choices they make. In this paper a combination of a simple mathematical model and the experience of the south Indian state of Kerala is used to suggest some patterns of development over the long term that this approach throws up. It argues that the effects of this approach could be wide-ranging, including contributing to the creation of non-agrarian villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to examine the role of technological efforts and firm size in determining the export behaviour of firms belonging to the basic chemical industry in India. The basic chemical industry is an important industry that provides intermediate chemicals to firms operating in diverse industries in both India and abroad. In this study technological efforts have been considered in terms of in-house R&D, import of embodied technology, and import of disembodied technology. Three different econometric models, namely, the Tobit, the two-part (Probit + Truncation) and the sample selection (Heckman), have been used for estimation and the results have been compared. The authors find evidence in support of the view that export behaviour of the firm can be modelled in a more appropriate manner using a two-part or a sample selection model rather than the popular Tobit model. The results of the econometric exercise confirm that technological efforts, firm size and other firm-specific characteristics are important in explaining the export behaviour of the firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of the arrangements governing an educational system depends on the motivations of key actors. This paper analyses the state of education in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and the role that teachers have played in the political process. It describes how teachers have become embedded in the political system and the way teacher associations and unions have actively pursued demands through various strikes and other forms of action. Although teachers have been successful in improving pay, job security and service benefits, less progress has been made on broader improvements in the schooling system such as the promotion of education in general or improving equity and efficiency in the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sketches a picture, with broad strokes on a wide canvas, of thinking about, and outcomes in, development during the second half of the 20th Century, to stress the importance of learning and “unlearning” from experience. In doing so, it questions the caricature distinctions between success and failure at development, in a world where outcomes were mixed. This is illustrated vividly by a tale of two countries: China and India. In this time span, thinking about development witnessed a complete swing of the pendulum, from the Development Consensus to the Washington Consensus. These shifts in paradigm, which reshaped strategies of development, were influenced strongly by history and conjuncture, reinforced by the dominant political ideology of the times. However, changes in development strategies did not lead to the expected outcomes. In fact, there was a discernible mismatch between turning points in thinking and performance. Of course, experience of the past 50 years did lead to some rethinking about development. This learning from experience, however, was selective; and it differed across schools of thought, for it was shaped only in part by outcomes. It was also influenced significantly by priors in thinking and ideology in perspectives. Thus, attempts to unlearn from development, which questioned beliefs or changed previous beliefs embedded in ideologies, were few and far between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Indian data to investigate the existence and nature of gender bias in the intra-household allocation of expenditure. An extended version of the collective household model is estimated where the welfare weights, i.e. the bargaining power of the adult decision-makers, are simultaneously determined with the household's expenditure outcomes. Significant gender bias is detected in some items, most notably in education, and it is found that the bias is considerably stronger in the more economically backward regions of the country. It is also found that the results of the test of gender bias vary sharply between households at different levels of adult literacy. This is particularly true of household spending on education. The gender bias in the case of this item is, generally, more likely to prevail in households with low levels of adult educational attainment than in more literate households. This result is of considerable policy importance given the strong role that education plays in human capital formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the rapid expansion in outflows of foreign direct investment from India and the spurt in foreign acquisitions by Indian firms, during the past decade, situated in the wider context of international investment from developing countries. Much of the investment was in manufacturing activities and most of the acquisitions were in industrialized countries. The economic stimulus and the strategic motive for the internationalization of firms from India were provided by a range of underlying factors driving the process, which differed across sectors and firms. The rapid growth in investment and acquisitions by Indian firms were partly attributable to factors implicit in the liberalization of the policy regime and the greater access to financial markets; but it must be recognized that Indian firms could not have become international without the capacity and the ability to compete in the world market. The attributes of Indian firms, which created such capacities and abilities, are embedded in the past and have emerged over a much longer period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the determinants of the overseas direct investment activity of Indian manufacturing enterprises. In general, several firm-specific characteristics such as age, size, R&D intensity, skill intensity and export orientation are observed to be important explanatory factors in the outward foreign direct investment (O-FDI) activity of lndian firms. The impact of age and size on O-FDI has been observed to be non-linear. The product differentiation activities and the productivity of firms are other useful factors in overseas production expansion in certain industries. The study reveals that the performance of these firm-specific variables is subject to sectoral dynamics. Internationalization of production activities of Indian finns has been observed to be partly fuelled by policy liberalization during the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the vulnerability of rural households to poverty when a negative crop shock occurs. The analysis is based on the ICRISAT panel survey of households in a semi-arid region in south India during 1975-84. Using a dynamic panel data model that takes into account effects of crop shocks, an assessment of vulnerability of different groups of households is carried out. What is somewhat surprising is that even sections of relatively affluent households are highly vulnerable to long spells of poverty when severe crop shocks occur. As such crop shocks are frequent in a harsh production environment, there must be a shift of emphasis in anti-poverty measures from meeting income shortfalls among the poor to enabling the vulnerable to protect themselves better against these shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important area of development that needs urgent attention in developing countries is poverty alleviation. Urban poverty in India, as in some other countries, is a spillover of rural poverty and about 65% of the labour force is still working in the agricultural sector. To that extent, this paper, though it does not provide a numerical magnitude of poverty per se, advocates policies directly targeting the agricultural sector to reduce poverty. The policy conclusion is that promoting investment and technological progress, along with efficient use of technology in agriculture, are central to reducing poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is world-wide agreement on poverty reduction as an overriding goal of development policy, there is little agreement on the definition of poverty. Four approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty are reviewed in this paper: the monetary, capability, social exclusion and participatory approaches. The theoretical underpinnings of the various measures and problems of operationalizing them are pointed out. It is argued that each is a construction of reality, involving numerous judgements, which are often not transparent. The different methods have different implications for policy, and also, to the extent that they point to different people as being poor, for targeting. Empirical work in Peru and India shows that there is significant lack of overlap between the methods with, for example, nearly half the population identified as in poverty according to monetary poverty but not in capability poverty, and conversely. This confirms similar findings elsewhere. Hence, the definition of poverty does matter for poverty eradication strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alleged beneficial effects of regional industrial clusters for competitiveness and growth in developing countries have been subject to intensive study. A prominent place in the debate has been occupied by the collective efficiency approach. In this paper we extend that approach by incorporating insights from the literature on firm-level technological learning in development. The resulting framework is applied to the software cluster of Bangalore (India), to illustrate the ways in which spatial proximity of firms and other parties interacts with cluster knowledge creation in a dynamic environment. A number of new insights emerge, including the importance of "old economy" factors such as high demand for innovation, international technology transfer, low wages and strong technology and education institutions. To the extent that "new economy" regional factors also matter, spontaneous agglomeration advantages appear to be important alongside active collective efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the maximum likelihood method of cointegration, this paper empirically evaluates intra-state and inter-state spatial integration of wheat markets in India. The cointegration tests provide strong evidence in favour of spatial integration of the regional wheat markets. Even though the regional markets are geographically dispersed, the prices across different market centres within and across the selected states have exhibited long-run spatial linkages, suggesting that all the exchange locations are integrated and the prices provide relevant market signals. There are several implications of these results for agricultural price policy and food market liberalization programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between trade policy and economic performance is one of the oldest controversies in economic development. In this paper, we examine an alternative mechanism through which trade reforms may impact on economic growth to those commonly discussed in the literature. This mechanism builds on the link between equipment investment and growth that has been observed in cross-country data. We argue that that in countries which have had highly restrictive trade policies with respect to capital goods, liberalization measures that specifically target capital goods imports may bring about a fall in the relative price of capital goods, leading to an increase in the rate of investment in equipment. Quantifying the link between trade policy, equipment investment and economic growth in the Indian case, we find strong support for this mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the many indicators of child welfare, rates of child and infant mortality and the prevalance of child labour are especially important, particularly in the context of developing countries. This paper estimates and simulates a model of child welfare based on recently released data for the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The results show that some policies, like raising female literacy rates or reducing inequality in land holdings, could have unexpected effects, while the effects of other policies, like reducing poverty or improving infrastructure, are more predictable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance can be researched narrowly as an instrument for promoting development or more broadly as an endogenous component of development. This paper sets out a simple well-being regime model incorporating both views and uses it to review the dynamics of rural microfinance in India. Four potential drivers of change in the role of microfinance in India are reviewed: evidence-based policy, rising political aspirations, new technology and agro-climatic change. The paper argues for combining more narrowly focused microfinance impact assessment with broader research into microfinance as one component of wider well-being regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the microfinance industry, “empowerment” is often described as a means to facilitate female emancipation from male domination. This paper draws on women's testimonies to highlight the fundamental importance of women's relationships with one another in this process. Women continuously negotiate a position between their kinship groups and neighbours, in a context where dependence on men is considered natural. Micro-credit uses are shaped by, and embody, relationships between women, including power relationships. We recommend revising current understandings of female agency to take into account the complex relationship between agency and power and challenge the conventional polarity of power as domination (power over) and power as agency (power to). In many cases, even where there is solidarity between women, women having agency require or imply domination over other women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Inclusive financial sectors are important for development in terms of equity and efficiency. Although microfinance has developed rapidly, little is known about the actual costs for clients to access microfinance services, except for interest rates. The insufficient outreach of microfinance in rural areas remains one of the main challenges for the sector. This paper uses the individual data of 255 clients in India and the data of 48 groups to which they belong to compare the transaction costs (TCs) between urban and rural microfinance clients. The results suggest that the TCs incurred by urban microfinance borrowers are globally higher than those incurred by their rural counterparts (4.81% compared with 3.35%), mainly because of their opportunity expenses and individual costs that are unrelated to microfinance groups. Yet, when considering a household's total monthly expenditure level, the microfinance TCs constitute a much higher relative expenditure for rural households than for their urban counterparts. Total TCs are still relatively low compared with the main cost of loans, i.e., their interest rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]