Democracy promotes economic development (Naidu et al. 2014, Acemoglu et al. 2019). However, a rising internal threat is spreading across democracies worldwide: populism (Tabellini 2019, Guriev and Papaioannou 2022). One way to conceptualise populism is as a ‘thin-centered’ ideology that views society as fundamentally divided into two homogeneous, opposing groups: ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. […]
One of the classic insights from international economics is that there are winners and losers from trade. Recent research has pointed towards geography as a dimension along which the distributional consequences of international trade can occur (Topalova 2010, Autor et al. 2013, Dix Carneiro and Kovak 2018). We provide new theory and evidence on these […]
As India’s urban population grows, developing high-quality mass transit systems becomes essential, but financing remains a challenge. Implementing advertising, leasing space, property development, and shopping at stations can significantly enhance financial sustainability for metro companies. I disembarked at a metro station in Delhi and as the gleaming coaches of the train sped off, I marveled […]
Inefficient management of public funds leads to missed opportunities for governments to invest in development priorities like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Too often, governments borrow money while holding surplus funds that earn little or no returns. To address this, many countries have adopted the Treasury Single Account (TSA), an essential tool that brings all government […]
