Development, Distribution and Markets

Contents: Introduction. Part A: Anti-Poverty Policies. 1. Anti-Poverty Programs in India: Past, Present and Future/Dilip Mookherjee. 2. Is a Decentralized Right-to-Work Policy Feasible?/Martin Ravallion. 3. When Are Cash Transfers Transformative?/Bruce Wydick. 4. Improving Health Care Delivery in India/Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. 5. The India Fund/Parikshit Ghosh and Debraj Ray. Part B: Labour, Land and Financial Markets. 6. A Note on Evaluating Growth Processes/Bhaskar Dutta. 7. Employer Power, Labour Saving Technical Change and Inequality/Nancy H. Chau and Ravi Kanbur. 8. Property Rights and Productivity of Resource Allocation in Developing Countries/Maitreesh Ghatak. 9. Financial Inclusion: Concepts, Issues and Policies for India/Nirvikar Singh. Part C: Political Regimes and Economic Development. 10. Aggregation, Ideology and the Social Ordering of Caste/Rohini Somanathan. 11. Enlightened Autocrats: Lessons from Bold Experiments in the Lands of Islam/Jean-Philippe Platteau. 12. China's Belt and Road Initiative: Hopes and Bumps along the Road/Gerard Roland. This volume is a testament to the breadth and policy relevance of development economics today. It grapples with questions on how to design anti-poverty policies and under what conditions we can expect them to be successful. It concentrates on programmes and policies for India and covers international experience with cash transfer programmes. The work in this area applies core theoretical insights to policy discussions surrounding poverty measurement, income inequality, rural unemployment, and compares alternative growth strategies in terms of their impact on poverty and inequality. The book closes with chapters that trespass the boundaries of economics and enter the territory of politics, to engage urgent concerns of the day that are the basis of much dispute and debate. The essays are collected under three broad themes-anti-poverty policies; land, labour and financial markets; and political economy.