How does wartime rebel governance shape post-conflict institutions? We study this in Nepal, where the Maoist People's War (1996–2006) dismantled a 240-year caste-based monarchy and ended with Maoists entering democratic politics. During the conflict, Maoists established sub-national "People’s Governments" that administered justice, collected taxes, and delivered local services. Using a spatial regression-discontinuity design, we show that exposure to People's Governments increased political knowledge and participation especially among historically marginalized indigenous groups (Janajatis). Exposure also reshaped party institutions and inter-party competition: candidate-selection committees in more exposed areas have 26 percent more Janajati members who, drawing on novel implicit-attitude data, exhibit less pro-upper caste bias. Non-Maoist parties' Janajati nomination rates nearly double in fully exposed areas, consistent with competition for newly mobilized voters. Nearly two decades on, local governments in exposed areas score 0.2–0.3 standard deviations higher on state capacity indices and receive 13% more in conditional federal grants. These findings show that when rebel groups enter competitive democratic politics, wartime governance institutions can — through citizen mobilization, party gatekeeping, and cross-party competition — enable a more inclusive and capable post-war state.

In this paper, we contend that elected women leaders' ability to affect public services in favour of women citizens is conditional on the gender composition of the councils they lead. We leverage variation in the gender of village heads and composition of village councils, driven by an Indian reservation mandate. Using IHDS-II dataset, we find that access to piped drinking water and widows' pension is significantly better in those women-led village councils that also have more women. Subgroup analysis shows that when the gender composition of these councils is in favour of women leader's caste, households report lesser girl harassment, but also lower access to piped water among disadvantage caste groups. Our results underscore the importance of critical mass of women members in village councils. Their collective strength and relational role with women heads shape the latter's effectiveness in delivering women-preferred outcomes.

The objective of this study is to analyse the role of communication technology, such as smartphones, in influencing public service provision. The penetration of smartphones is low in rural India, particularly among frontline health workers, who are typically women. This study analyses the association between smartphone ownership, communication practices, and information-oriented service provision among frontline health workers, beneficiaries and supervisors during the COVID-19 lockdown in Chhattisgarh, India. It uses data from a phone survey conducted with 642 frontline workers and employs regression analysis to study the associations, adjusting for observable frontline worker and subdistrict characteristics. Qualitative data from interviews with 19 government officials support the importance of technology in communication during COVID-19. Owning a smartphone allows flexibility for frontline workers in communicating during the lockdown over phone calls or WhatsApp with their beneficiaries, supervisors and other frontline workers. Communications over smartphones did not crowd out in-person interactions, suggesting that the overall frequency of communication was higher during the lockdown than for those frontline workers without smartphones. Frontline workers with smartphones could provide counselling services, antenatal care and immunisation support at a significantly higher rate. To conclude, smartphone-based technology can complement the usual communication channels, providing a viable option if there are service disruptions.

Existing studies show that village councils led by women result in different policies compared tothose led by men, in India. A dominant narrative is that women-led councils tend to favour policiesrelevant to their own gender. However, given the deep-rooted gender bias in India, the feasibility ofwomen leaders to influence decisions by themselves would likely be conditional on the gender balance in their councils. Using IHDS wave of 2011-12, this study employs the outcomes from the existing literature, such as water and crime against women, to show that women-led councils perform better on these outcomes only when village councils have a higher proportion of women. An instrumental variable strategy, that employs reservation rule for women in village councils as instruments, is also used to provide causal evidence. To explore a potential channel, indicators for women citizens’ participation in local governance are used. Surprisingly, women are less likely to participate when village councils are led by women and have a higher gender balance. I discuss potential explanations behind this anomaly, and provide suggestive evidence for one of the explanations. Participation by women citizens is better when village councils are headed by men, which could be indicative of the felt need by women citizens in the absence of women representation in decision-making positions.

Do smaller local governments provide more for their citizens, especially when they are also held accountable to their citizens? This paper extends the empirical literature on the size of local governments by explicitly exploring one of the key influencing factors - direct local elections, a proxy for local accountability. Using an Indonesian panel of village-level outcomes data, the paper shows that a reduction in local government size (due to district splitting) increases public good provision but that this effect is restricted to districts that had direct local elections. It also provides suggestive evidence to show that increased revenue was channeled into developmental expenditures only in those split districts that faced direct elections. The identification strategy relies on a surprise local election announced while the number of local governments in Indonesia was increasing, which also abruptly imposed a moratorium on the process of splitting.

Background Modeling studies estimated severe impacts of potential service delivery disruptions due to COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and child nutrition outcomes. Although anecdotal evidence exists on disruptions, little is known about the actual state of service delivery at scale. We studied disruptions and restorations, challenges and adaptations in health and nutrition service delivery by frontline workers (FLWs) in India during COVID-19 in 2020. Methods We conducted phone surveys with 5500 FLWs (among them 3118 Anganwadi Workers) in seven states between August–October 2020, asking about service delivery during April 2020 (T1) and in August-October (T2), and analyzed changes between T1 and T2. We also analyzed health systems administrative data from 704 districts on disruptions and restoration of services between pre-pandemic (December 2019, T0), T1 and T2. Results In April 2020 (T1), village centers, fixed day events, child growth monitoring, and immunization were provided by <50% of FLWs in several states. Food supplementation was least disrupted. In T2, center-based services were restored by over a third in most states. Administrative data highlights geographic variability in both disruptions and restorations. Most districts had restored service delivery for pregnant women and children by T2 but had not yet reached T0 levels. Adaptations included home delivery (60 to 96%), coordinating with other FLWs (7 to 49%), and use of phones for counseling (~2 to 65%). Personal fears, long distances, limited personal protective equipment, and antagonistic behavior of beneficiaries were reported challenges. Conclusions Services to mothers and children were disrupted during stringent lockdown but restored thereafter, albeit not to pre-pandemic levels. Rapid policy guidance and adaptations by FLWs enabled restoration but little remains known about uptake by client populations. As COVID-19 continues to surge in India, focused attention to ensuring essential services is critical to mitigate these major indirect impacts of the pandemic.

Objectives Modeling studies have estimated impacts of potential service delivery disruptions due to COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and child nutrition outcomes, but little is known about actual delivery status. We studied disruptions and restorations of health and nutrition services by frontline workers (FLWs) in India during COVID-19. Methods We conducted phone surveys with 5500 FLWs in seven states between August–October 2020, asking about service delivery during April 2020 (T1) and in the August-October period (T2) and analyzed changes between T1 and T2. We also analyzed publicly available administrative data (AD) from 704 districts including the pre-pandemic period (T0) to examine disruptions and restoration of services. Results Phone surveys suggest, in T1, opening of village centers, fixed day events, growth monitoring, and immunization services was <50% in several states. In T2, restorations of center-based services were seen, with increases of >33% in >= 3 states. Food supplementation was least disrupted both in T1 and T2. AD highlights geographic variability both in disruptions in T1 compared to T0 and restorations in T2. FLWs’ adaptations to ensure service provision included home delivery (60 to 96%), ensuring physical distancing (33 to 86%), coordinating with other FLWs (7 to 49%), and using phone (∼2 to 65%). Challenges included personal fears, walking long distances, and beneficiaries’ non-cooperation. Conclusions Services to mothers and children were disrupted during lockdown and restored thereafter. Rapid policy guidance and local adaptations by a strong cadre of FLWs likely enabled service resumption. However, gaps remain, and more research is needed on use of services by clients. Funding Sources Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through POSHAN, led by International Food Policy Research Institute.

In 2015, after a decade-long conflict and nine years of negotiation, Nepal promulgated a constitution that replaced its 240-year-old monarchy by a federal republic. The subsequent 2017 local elections ushered more than 30,000 first-time politicians into office. Using a census of 3.68 million Nepalis (2.56 million of whom are of voting age) covering eleven districts, party nomination lists and party candidate selection committee surveys, electoral data and information on conflict incidence, we document that castes that were historically excluded from political representation achieved representation without a significant representation-ability trade-off: improved social representation among politicians is accompanied by positive selection on education and income. Triangulating across multiple data sources, we show that the entry of the revolutionary Maoist group as a post-conflict mainstream party played an important role. Finally, political representation of non-elite castes improved their policy inclusion as measured by individual access to earthquake reconstruction transfers. These gains, however, vary with the extent of social connections to the elected mayor and point to a continuing need to balance power by supporting institutions that provide all citizens political voice.

Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; Singhania, Deepak | Abstract: In 2015, after a decade-long conflict and nine years of negotiation, Nepal promulgated a constitution that replaced its 240-year-old monarchy by a federal republic. The subsequent 2017 local elections ushered more than 30,000 first-time politicians into office. Using a census of 3.68 million Nepalis (2.56 million of whom are of voting age) covering eleven districts, party nomination lists and party candidate selection committee surveys, electoral data and information on conflict incidence, we document that castes that were historically excluded from political representation achieved representation without a significant representation-ability trade-off: improved social representation among politicians is accompanied by positive selection on education and income. Triangulating across multiple data sources, we show that the entry of the revolutionary Maoist group as a post-conflict mainstream party played an important role. Finally, political representation of non-elite castes improved their policy inclusion as measured by individual access to earthquake reconstruction transfers. These gains, however, vary with the extent of social connections to the elected mayor and point to a continuing need to balance power by supporting institutions that provide all citizens political voice.

This paper provides an impact evaluation of the Programa Nacional de Crédito Fundiário, a market assisted land reform program in Brazil. The paper uses a panel dataset and pipeline control group to evaluate the program's impact on agricultural production and earned income, using a difference-in-differences model with either municipal or individual fixed effects. The heterogeneous effect of additional years of land ownership is investigated. The findings suggest that the program increases production and earned income by about 74% and 37%, but only after four years of land ownership. The conclusions are supported by a number of robustness tests, although considerable attrition and potential bias due to unobserved variables suggests caution. The benefits of the program largely go to making debt payments. If the impact on income continues to grow, as it did in the first five years, improvements in net wealth and current welfare could both be achieved.

Lokshin and Radyakin (2012) present evidence that month of birth affects child physical growth in India. We replicate these correlations using the same data and demonstrate that they are the result of a spurious relationship between month of birth, age-at-measurement and child growth patterns in developing countries. We repeat the analysis on 39 additional countries and show that there is no evidence of seasonal birth effects in child height-for-age z-score in any country. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the Demographic and Health Survey data used to estimate the correlation is not suitable for the task due to a previously unrecognized source of measurement error in child month of birth. We document results from several papers that should be re-interpreted in light of this issue.

In this paper, I differentiate between partial and full decentralization by comparing Indonesian districts treated with only administrative or political decentralization against those treated with both. I argue that the contention regarding the effect of decentralization on public goods provision stems from insufficiently disentangling partial from full decentralization. Using an Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, I show that use of a näıve specification, that considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their complementarities, leads to omitted variable bias. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts treated with both types of decentralization, i.e. full decentralization, display significantly greater provision of public goods compared to those that experienced partial decentralization in the form of only political or administrative decentralization. I also show that increased revenue was channeled into developmental expenditures only in those administratively decentralized districts that also faced political decentralization.

Decentralization has dramatically altered governance in developing countries. However, the empirical evidence on its welfare effects has been limited and ambiguous. I argue that this ambiguity is due to a misidentification of different types of decentralization – namely administrative, political and fiscal – and their synergies. In order to test this claim, the paper employs a unique Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy with village level fixed effects. I show that use of a näıve specification that only considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their synergies leads to an omitted variable bias problem. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts that have both types of decentralization display significantly greater welfare improvements compared to those that face only political or administrative decentralization or no decentralization at all. I also provide evidence on improvements in governance.

Comparisons of levels of poverty across contexts and circumstances overlook the composition and characteristics of the domain of non-poor. But implications of poverty in terms of compromised welfare as well as its potential for alleviation do depend on the structure and composition of the non-poor. On this premise, this note empirically illustrates a contrast between the levels and burden of poverty for Indian states. It finds that burden of poverty is not linear with levels of poverty implying that similar levels of poverty have differential potential for its alleviation.

Decentralization of power has brought sweeping changes to governance systems of many developing countries over the past few decades. During 1997-2007 the World Bank has given $22 billion to its client countries to facilitate this process. However, the empirical evidence on the eects of decentralization on welfare outcomes has been both limited and ambiguous. Additionally, empirical comparison of dierent types of decentralization { namely administrative, political and scal { is missing. In this paper, I analyze