Political Economy

  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 – forthcoming in Cambridge Companion to Indian Politics and Society
  1. The Added Value of Local Democracy: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India (with Abhishek Arora, Siddharth George and MR Sharan), World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, August 2023
  2. Money vs Kudos: The Impact of Incentivizing Local Politicians in Rural India (with Ghazala Mansur, Slesh Shreshta and Nethra Paliniswamy, Journal of Public Economics,Volume 224, August 2023, 104922
  3. Flies Without Borders:  Lessons from Chennai on Improving India’s Public Health Services (with Monica Das Gupta, R. Dasgupta, P. Kungananthan, TV Somanathan, and KN Tewari), September 2017, Journal of Development Studies
  4. Deliberative Inequality:  A Text-As-Data Study of India’s Village Assemblies (with Ramya Parthasarathy and Nethra Palaniswamy), June 2017, American Political Science Review
  5. Unheard Voices: The Challenge of Inducing Women’s Civic Speech (with Ramya Parthasarathy and Nethra Palaniswamy), June 2017, World Development
  6. “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 2017, World Development 
  7. “Can Participation be Induced? Evidence from Developing Countries,” (with Ghazala Mansuri), Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy,” 2013
  8. The Regulation of Land Markets: Evidence from Tenancy Reform In India (with Tim Besley, Jessica Leight and Rohini Pande), London School of Economics, Working paper January 2013
  9. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?  (With Ghazala Mansuri), World Bank Policy Research Report, 201
  10. “Why and How Does History Matter for Development,” (with Michael Woolcock and Simon Szreter) Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 47, #1, Pp: 70-96, January 2011
jeep
Election jeep – Karnataka

© V. Rao

  1. “The Political Economy of Village Sanitation: Capture or Poor Information,” (with Radu Ban and Monica Das Gupta),Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 47 #4, Pp: 685-700, 2010
  2. “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, pp:146-172, May 2010
  3. “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
  4. “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
  5. “The Political Construction of Caste in South India,” (with Radu Ban) mimeo, World Bank, October 2007
  6. “Governance and the “Karnataka Model of Development’” (with Gopal K. Kadekodi and Ravi Kanbur), Economic and Political Weekly, February 24, 2007
  7. “The Political Economy of Gram Panchayats in South India,” (with Tim Besley and Rohini Pande), Economic and Political Weekly , February 24, 2007
  8. “Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Community Leadership in Delhi’s Slums,” (with Saumitra Jha and Michael Woolcock),  World Development (forthcoming), 2006
  9. “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
  10. “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