All files are in PDF format unless otherwise mentioned. Please send comments to: m.ghatak@lse.ac.uk

Recent Working Papers

  1. Land Acquisition and Compensation in Singur: What Really Happened? (with Sandip Mitra, Dilip Mookherjee and Anusha Nath), Working Paper, February 2013.

  2. Motivating Agents to Spread Information: Can Incentive Pay Overcome Social Distance (with E.Berg, R. Manjula, D. Rajasekhar, Sanchari Roy), Working Paper, December 2012.

  3. Group Lending Without Joint Liability (with Jon de Quidt and Thiemo Fetzer), Working Paper, December 2012. 

  4. Market Structure and Borrower Welfare in Microfinance, (with Jon de Quidt and Thiemo Fetzer), Working Paper, September 2012. [Slides] 

  5. Can Market Failure Cause Political Failure? (with Madhav Aney and Masismo Morelli), Working Paper, July 2011 (Revised, August 2012).

  6. Land Acquisition and Compensation in Singur: Results of a Survey, (with Sandip Mitra, Dilip Mookherjee, and Anusha Nath), Working Paper, March 2012 [See also press coverage, and op-ed] 

  7. Contractual Structure in Agriculture with Endogenous Matching, (with Alexander Karaivanov), Working Paper, February 2011 (Revised, January 2013).

  8. Microfinance, Market Structure, and Borrower Welfare in Microfinance: Regulatory Lessons from the Indian Crisis (with Jon de Quidt and Thiemo Fetzer), Working Paper, March 2012.

  9. Repayment Frequency and Lending Contracts with Present-Biased Borrowers, (with Greg Fischer), Working Paper, July 2010.

Published/Accepted Papers

  1. Land Acquisition for Industrialization and Compensation for Displaced Farmers, (with Dilip Mookherjee). Forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics. 

  2. Bailouts and the Optimal Taxation of Bonus Pay, (with Tim Besley).  Forthcoming, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2013.

  3. Trade and the Allocation of Talent with Capital Market Imperfections, (with Roberto Bonfatti). Forthcoming, Journal of International Economics.

  4. Marry for What? Partner Selection in Modern India, (with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Jeanne Lafortune). [Online Appendix]. Forthcoming, American Economic Journal (Microeconomics).

  5. Incentives and the de Soto Effect, (with Tim Besley and Kornad Burchardi), Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 2012,

  6. The Land Acquisition Bill: A Critique and a Proposal, (with Parikshit Ghosh), Economic and Political Weekly of India, October 8, 2011, Vol. XLVI, No 41.  (Click here and here for shorter versions, and here for press coverage] 

  7. Implementing Health Insurance: The Rollout of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in Karnataka, (with Durgam, R., Berg, E., Manjula,R., and Roy, S.), Economic and Political Weekly of India, May 2011.

  8. Thanks for Nothing? Not-for-Profits and Motivated Agents, (with Hannes Mueller), Journal of Public Economics, Volume 95, Issues 1-2, Pages 94-105, February 2011.

  9. Spanning the Chasm: Uniting Theory and Empirics in Microfinance Research, (with Greg Fischer), in B. Armendariz and M. Labie (ed.s), Handbook of Microfinance, World Scientific, 2011.   

  10. Property Rights and Economic Development, (with Tim Besley), in D. Rodrik and M. Rosenzweig (ed.s) Handbook of Development Economics V, North Holland, 2010.

  11. Status Incentives (with Tim Besley),  American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2008.

  12. Reforming Public Service Delivery, (with Tim Besley), in Journal of African Economics, Vol 16, AERC Supplement 1, p. 127-156, 2007. [See press coverage] 

  13. Land Reform and Agricultural Productivity in India: A Review of the Evidence (with Sanchari Roy), Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 23(2): India, Summer 2007.   

  14. Land Reform, entry in The Oxford Companion to Economics in India edited by Kaushik Basu, Oxford University Press, 2007.

  15. Retailing Public Goods: The Economics of Corporate Social Responsibility (with Tim Besley), Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 91, No. 9, p. 1645–1663, September 2007.

  16. Wealth Inequality and Collective Action (with Pranab Bardhan and Alexander Karaivanov), Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 91, No. 9, p. 1843–1874, September 2007.

  17. Entrepreneurial Talent, Occupational Choice, and Trickle Up Policies (with Massimo Morelli and Tomas Sjostrom), Journal of Economic Theory, Volume 137, No. 1, November 2007.

  18. Beyond Nandigram: Industrialization in West Bengal (with Abhijit Banerjee, Pranab Bardhan, Kaushik Basu, Mrinal Datta-Chaudhuri, Ashok Guha, Mukul Majumdar, Dilip Mookherjee, and Debraj Ray), Economic and Political Weekly of India, April 28, 2007

  19. Subcontractors for Tractors - Theory and Evidence on Flexible Specialization, Supplier Selection, and Contracting , (with Tahir Andrabi and Asim Ijaz Khwaja). Journal of Development Economics, April 2006.

  20. Inequality and Collective Action, (with Pranab Bardhan and Alexander Karaivanov) in P. Bardhan, S. Bowles and J. M. Baland (ed.) Economic Inequality, Collective Action, and Environmental Sustainability, Princeton University Press, 2006.

  21. Public Goods and Economic Development, (with Tim Besley) in Understanding Poverty, (ed.s) A. Banerjee, R. Benabou, and D. Mookherjee, editors, Oxford University Press: 2006.

  22. Sorting with Motivated Agents:  Implications for School Competition and Teacher Incentives, (with Tim Besley), Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings, 2006.

  23. Incentives, risk and accountability in organizations (with Tim Besley), in Organizational Encounters with Risk (ed.s) Bridget Hutter and Michael Power, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

  24. Joint Liability Lending and the Peer Selection Effect, (with S. Gangopadhyay and R. Lensink), Economic Journal, October 2005.

  25. Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents (with Tim Besley), American Economic Review, June 2005.

  26. Who should provide public goods? A Perspective from the Theory of Organizations?, Development, Displacement and Disparity - India in the Last Quarter of the Century, (ed.s) S. Marjit and N. Banerjee, Orient Longman, 2005. 

  27. Eviction Threats and Investment Incentives, (with Abhijit Banerjee) Journal of Development Economics, August 2004.

  28. Incentives, Choice and Accountability in the Provision of Public Services, (with Tim Besley), Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 19 (2): Financing and Managing Public Services.

  29. Can Unobserved Heterogeneity in Farmer Ability Explain the Inverse Relationship between Farm Size and Productivity?  (with Juliano Assuncao), Economics Letters, August 2003.

  30. Strategy for Economic Reform in West Bengal (with Abhijit Banerjee, Pranab Bardhan, Kaushik Basu, Mrinal Datta-Chaudhuri, Ashok Guha, Mukul Majumdar, Dilip Mookherjee, and Debraj Ray), Economic and Political Weekly of India, October 12, 2002.

  31. A Simple Model of Inequality, Occupational Choice and Development, (with Nien-Huei Jiang). Journal  of Development Economics, Vol. 69, No. 1, October 2002.

  32. Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal, (with Abhijit Banerjee and Paul Gertler). Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 110, No. 2, April 2002. [See press coverage] 

  33. Recent Reforms in the Panchayat System in West Bengal: Toward Greater Participatory Governance? (with Maitreya Ghatak). Economic and Political Weekly of India, Vol 37, No 1, January 5, 2002. Reprinted in Decentralisation: Institutions and Politics in Rural India (ed.s) Satyajit Singh and Pradeep K. Sharma, Oxford University Press, Delhi. [See press coverage] 

  34. Financially Interlinked Business Groups  (with Raja Kali) Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Vol. 10, Issue 4, p. 591-619, Winter 2001.

  35. Government versus Private Ownership of Public Goods, (with Tim Besley). Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 116, No. 4, p.1343 – 1372, November 2001.

  36. Occupational Choice and Dynamic Incentives, (with Massimo Morelli and Tomas Sjostrom). Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 68, No. 4, October 2001 p. 781-810.

  37. Diversified Business Groups in Emerging Economies (with R. Kali), Money and Finance, Vol.2, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 2000

  38. Contract Choice in Agriculture with Joint Moral Hazard in Effort and Risk, (with Priyanka Pandey). Journal of Development Economics, Vol.63, No.2, December 2000.

  39. Screening by the Company You Keep: Joint Liability Lending and the Peer Selection Effect. Economic Journal, Vol.110, Issue 465, July 2000.

  40. The Economics of Lending with Joint Liability : Theory and Practice (with Timothy W. Guinnane). Journal of Development Economics, Vol.60, No.1, October 1999. Reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Economic Development (ed.s) D. Mookherjee and D. Ray, London: Blackwell (2000). See also Corrections to this paper, Journal of Development Economics, Vol.69, No.1, October 2002.

  41. Group Lending, Local Information and Peer Selection. Journal of Development Economics, Vol.60, No.1, October 1999.

Recent Presentations

   1. Land Acquisition: Some Analytical Issues, January 2013, Keynote Lecture, Indian Statistical Institute, 2nd Workshop on Economic Growth in West Bengal.

   2. Recent Developments in the Economics of Microfinance, January 2013, Keynote Lecture, 3rd IIFT Conference, Kolkata. 

Older Working Papers

  1. Taxation and Regulation of Bonus Pay, (with Tim Besley), July 2011. (A less technical version was published in Vox and a shorter version is forthcoming in the AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2013)

  2. Credit Rationing, Wealth Inequality and Allocation of Talent, October 2002, (with Massimo Morelli and Tomas Sjostrom). STICERD Theoretical Economics Discussion Paper TE/2002/441.

  3. Public-Private Partnership for the Provision of Public Goods: Theory and an Application to NGOs (with Tim Besley), August 1999, STICERD Development Economics Discussion Paper Series, DEDPS 17.

  4. Gun Control and the Self Defense Argument, Version: January 2001.

  5. Reputation, Information Externalities, and Discrimination, Version: September 1999.

     

Back to the homepage

 

Last modified: December 2012

©2012 Maitreesh Ghatak, all rights reserved.