Markets, Governance, and Institutions in the Process of Economic Development

Written in honour of Kaushik Basu, Markets, Governance, and Institutions in the Process of Economic Development is a celebration of over forty years of contributions to development economics. Written by Professor Basu's past and present collaborators and research students it offers original insights and perspectives on issues relating to well-being, freedom, and institutions in the developmental context.

Throughout his career, Kaushik Basu has addressed policy issues such as as rent control, child labour, labour laws, harassment, shared prosperity, and gender empowerment. The contributions in this volume, theoretical as well as empirical, reflect this range of issues in the broader context of interactions between markets, governance, and institutions in the process of economic development. The broader roles of markets as key resource allocation mechanisms cannot be disputed. But they need suitable governance structures and institutions, working both as facilitators and as regulators. Markets, Governance and Institutions in the Process of Economic Development looks at the complex interactions between these three forces of development.

Divided into three distinct sections covering foundational and measurement issues associated with economic development and well-being; functioning (and non-functioning) of the market in the context of development; and structure and design issues relating to governance and institutions, this book provides a clear focus for academics and economists considering development policy questions.

Ajit Mishra is a development economist with research interests in economics of corruption and enforcement, inequality, vulnerability, and applied microeconomics. He is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Bath. He graduated from the Delhi School of Economics and, prior to University of Bath, has taught at various places including Delhi School of Economics, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Ashoka University, the University of Dundee, and the University of Edinburgh. He has written several articles on corruption and is the Editor of The Economics of Corruption (Oxford University Press, 2005).


Tridip Ray is a Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology before joining ISI Delhi. His research areas include economic development and growth, inequality, financial development, economics of education, and issues in applied microeconomics. He has published several articles on economic development and is the Co-Editor of New and Enduring Themes in Development Economics (World Scientific, 2009).