Participatory Development

  1. The Evolution of Local Participatory Democracy in Nepal (with Thaneshwar Bhusal and Michael Breen), November 2025
  2. Two Hundred and Fifty-Thousand Democracies: A Review of Village Government in India (with Siddharth George and M.R. Sharan), June 2024
  3. Evidence-Based Developed Requires a Diversity of Tools, with a Bottom-Up Process of Embedded Dialogue, World Development, December 2019
  4. Deliberative Inequality:  A Text-As-Data Study of India’s Village Assemblies (with Ramya Parthasarathy and Nethra Palaniswamy), June 2017
  5. Safety Nets and Natural Disaster Mitigation: Evidence from Hurricane Phailin in Odisha (Paul Christian, Eeshani Kandpal and Nethra Palanidswamy), March 2018
  6. Unheard Voices: The Challenge of Inducing Women’s Civic Speech (with Ramya Parthasarathy and Nethra Palaniswamy), June 2017
  7. On the Frontlines of Scaling-Up: A Qualitative Analysis of Implementation Challenges in Rural India (with Shruti Majumdar and Paromita Sanyal), April 2017
  8. Relief from Usury: Impact of a Community-Based Microcredit Program in Rural India (with V. Hoffmann, V. Surendra, and U. Datta), April 2017
  9. Who should be at the top of bottom-up development? (With Shareen Joshi), March 2017
  10. Recasting Culture to Undo Gender: A Sociological Analysis of Jeevika in Rural Bihar, India (with Shruti Majumdar and Paromita Sanyal), September 2015
  11. Patrick Heller and Vijayendra Rao (editors) Deliberation and Development: Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies, Washington DC, World Bank, 2015
  12. “The Anatomy of Failure: Integrating Ethnography with a Randomized Control Trial to Evaluate an Attempt to Deepen Democracy in Rural India,” (with Kripa Ananthpur and Kabir Malik), March 2014
  13. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?  (With Ghazala Mansuri), World Bank Policy Research Report, 2013
  14. “Can Participation be Induced? Evidence from Developing Countries,” (with Ghazala Mansuri), Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy,” 2013
  15. “Just Rewards: Local Politics and Public Resource Allocation in India,” (with Tim Besley and Rohini Pande), World Bank Economic Review, Vol 26, #2, Pp: 191-216, 2012
  16. “Who has Voice in a Deliberative Democracy?  Evidence from Transcripts of Village Parliaments in India,” (with Radu Ban and Saumitra Jha), Journal of Development Economic,Vol. 99 #10, Pp: 428-438, November 2012
Gender
Women’s Village Organization, Muzzafarpur, Bihar

© V. Rao

  1. “Symbolic Public Goods and The Coordination of Collective Action: A Comparison of Local Development in India and Indonesia,” Chapter 10 in Pranab Bardhan and Isha Ray (editors) Contested Commons: Conversations Between Economists and Anthropologists, Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2008
  2. “Tokenism vs. Agency? The Impact of Women’s Reservations on Village Democracies in South India,” (with Radu Ban) Economic Development and Cultural Change, February 2009
  3. “The Political Economy of Village Sanitation: Capture or Poor Information,” (with Radu Ban and Monica Das Gupta),Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 47 #4, 2010 Pp: 685-700
  4. “Dignity Through Discourse: Poverty and the Culture of Deliberation in Indian Village Democracies,” (with Paromita Sanyal), Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 629, May 2010, pp:146-172
  5. “The Political Economy of Gram Panchayats in South India,” (with Tim Besley and Rohini Pande), Economic and Political Weekly , February 24, 2007
  6. “Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Community Leadership in Delhi’s Slums,” (with Saumitra Jha and Michael Woolcock),  World Development (forthcoming), 2006
  7. “The Social Impact of Social Funds in Jamaica: A “Participatory Econometric” Analysis of Targeting, Collective Action, and Participation in Community-Driven Development,” (lead author with Ana Maria Ibanez) Journal of Development Studies, vol. 41, No. 5, Pp: 788-838, July 2005
  8. “Participatory Democracy in Action: Survey Evidence From Rural India,” (joint with Tim Besley and Rohini Pande),Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 3, No. 2-3, Pages 648-657, April/May 2005
  9. “The Politics of Public Good Provision: Evidence from Indian Local Governments,” (with Tim Besley, Rohini Pande and Lupin Rahman), Journal of the European Economic Association , Vol. 2-23, 2004
  10. Culture and Public Action, (edited with Mike Walton), Stanford University Press, 2004
  11. “Conclusion,” (With Michael Walton), Chapter 16 in Culture and Public Action: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on Development Policy, (Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, editors) Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2004
  12. “Culture and Public Action: Relationality, Equality of Agency and Development,” (with Michael Walton), Chapter 1 inCulture and Public Action: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on Development Policy, (Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, editors) Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2004
  13. “Community Based (and Driven) Development: A Critical Review,” (with Ghazala Mansuri), The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1-39 (2004)
  14. “Experiments in Participatory Econometrics: Improving the Connection Between Economic Analysis and the Real World“, Economic and Political Weekly May 18th, 2002, 22(20), 1887-91
  15. “Poverty and Public Celebrations in Rural India,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” Vol. 573, Pp: 85-104, 2001