In India, women city councillors outperform men. Yet gender quotas actually reduce the overall welfare of voters as deep-seated discrimination against women outweighs policy gains. Alternative designs can improve both representation and welfare.
In rural India, roads and electricity complement each other, with their joint provision delivering far greater gains in dry-season agricultural productivity, assets, and consumption than either investment alone.
Sustained, classroom-based media literacy improved the ability of teenagers in rural India to resist misinformation. The effects are large, lasting – and even spill over to parents.
Evidence from India shows that R&D tax credit policies which targeted specific sectors generated meaningful welfare gains, particularly through improvements in product quality and product variety.
Inequality pushes poor households to sacrifice nutrition for ‘little luxuries’, reshaping basic
needs and worsening malnutrition. The implications for poverty programmes are large.
Training women in assertive communication in India enabled them to more effectively persuade their husbands to support their participation in the workforce – leading to substantial and sustained increases in women’s job uptake and earnings at low cos...
