Socio-Economic and Politics Projects
Tiger Reserve Area in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh states of India
Ruth Defries (Professor of ecology and sustainable development from Columbia University ) , and Amrita Neelakantan (Professor from Department of Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology )
The land use around Tiger reserves plays an important role in sustaining the flow of organisms, water, nutrients and energy- linking the reserves to the outside. These reserves in India also support the livelihood needs of people living in and…
Location: Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
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Land Title, Settlement Recognition and the Emergence of Property Rights
Anirudh Krishna (Professor from Duke University ) , Erik Wibbels () , and Emily Rains ()
Planners in India distinguish between declared and undeclared (or notified, recognized, and unrecognized) slums, but events have overtaken these gross distinctions, resulting in the emergence of five and perhaps six distinct types of slums. How slum settlements differ at a…
Location: Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Patna (Bihar)
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Be the Change You Want to See: Leadership Training and Women’s Political Participation
Lakshmi Iyer (Associate Professor of Business Administration from Harvard Business School ) , and Anandi Mani (Associate Professor of Economics from University of Warwick )
This project was examining the impact of a leadership and empowerment training program, aimed at increasing women’s political participation as voters, activists, informed citizens and political candidates. The training program was being conducted as a randomized trial and participation in…
Location: Uttar Pradesh
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Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India
Tariq Thachil (Associate Professor of Political Science from Vanderbilt University ) , and
Despite rapid urbanization across the Global South, identity politics within rural-urban migrant communities remains understudied. Past scholarship is divided over whether village-based ethnic divisions will erode or deepen within diverse poor migrant populations. The researcher assessed these divergent predictions through…
Location: North Indian states of India
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Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Professor of Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) , and Rohini Pande (Professor of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School )
This survey examined the relationship between ethnic polarization among voters and politician quality as measured by their competence and/or degree of corruption. The survey elicited information on constituency-level development, changes in the wealth of politicians after they came to office,…
Location: Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand
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Rural Transport Infrastructure, Poverty and Employment
Santosh Kumar (Associate Professor of Economics from Sam Houston State University ) , Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Professor of Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) , and Rohini Pande (Professor of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School )
This survey was based on the Participatory Rural Appraisal Exercise (PRAE) and carried out in 269 villages and in 14 districts of Uttar Pradesh. MORSEL also collected secondary data needed for the analysis. The PMGSY scheme was launched by the Government of…
Location: Uttar Pradesh
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Caste Politics and Redistribution
Avidit Acharya (Assistant Professor Department of Political Science from Stanford University ) , John Roemer (Professor of Political Science & Economics from Yale Univerisity ) , and Rohini Somanathan (Professor of Economics from Delhi School of Economics )
This survey-based study was focused on isolating the effect of voter’s preference for parties that represent their caste on the equal distribution of government services among three classes: the rich, the middle class and the poor. For this purpose researchers…
Location: Uttar Pradesh
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Voter Campaign (Uttar Pradesh)
Jennifer Green (PhD candidate, Department of Political Science from Yale University ) , Donald Green (Professor of Political Science from Yale University ) , Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Professor of Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) , and Rohini Pande (Professor of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School )
This randomized control trail was carried out in coordination with the Jamal Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Lucknow. MORSEL designed the campaigns, trained the facilitators (for both the NGOs) and puppet teams.…
Location: Uttar Pradesh
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Political Mobilization in Rural India – Follow-Up Survey 2010
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Professor of Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) , Rohini Pande (Professor of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School ) , and Jeffery MacManus (PhD candidate of Economics from Harvard Kennedy School )
This survey was the follow-up to voter education campaigns conducted in 2007 (randomized trial) in the same region. However, the survey did not target subjects who participated in those campaigns, and no questions pertaining to those campaigns were asked. The…
Location: Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh
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Unpacking Ethnic Preferences: Theory and Micro-Level Evidence From North India
Simon Chauchard (Assistant Professor of Political Science from Leiden University )
Much of the recent scholarship about ethnicity in comparative politics has focused on why ethnicity becomes a salient cleavage. Yet opinions still diverge as to how ethnicity matters. Researchers test three hypotheses relevant to this question. Building on recent arguments,…
Location: Gonda and Faizabad districts of Uttar Pradesh, India
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Whose side are you on? Identifying the Distributive Preference of local Politicians in India
Mark Schneider (Political Scientist from Columbia University ) , and Neelanjan Sircar (Assistant Professor from Ashoka University )
The literature on decentralized public programs suggests that errors in the targeting of anti-poverty programs are rooted in the capture of these programs by local elites or local politicians. Consistent with the literature on moral economy in political science and…
Location: Rajasthan
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How Quotas Shape Political Violence: Field Evidence from Jharkhand
Michael Gilligan (Professor of Politics from New York University ) , and Benjamin Pasquale ( Researcher from New York University )
This survey-based project covered 105 Gram Panchayats in Jharkhand. The Survey was done under the patronage of Benjamin Pasquale and Michael Gilligan. MORSEL interviewed 16 natives in each Gram Panchayat. The sample criteria designed by Researchers was based on reports and news articles of Naxalite…
Location: Jharkhand
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