Vegard Iversen
Biographic Data
| ID | 1251616 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vegard Iversen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vegard |
| FAMILY NAME | Iversen |
| SIGNATURE | IVERSEN V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of East Anglia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0425-2286 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 106 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Barriers or catalysts? Traditional institutions and social mobility in rural India
We examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. Theoretically, we distinguish between upper caste and own group dominance and examine the mechanisms underpinning inequality in mobility outcomes. We find inequality in upward educational mobility to have significantly narrowed over time. Scheduled Castes (SCs) have h…
Selecting the ‘Best’? Competing Dimensions of Politician Quality in the Developing World
Evidence suggests that politicians in advanced democracies are positively selected on characteristics relevant to their suitability for political office. Whereas stereotypes abound, much less is known about the quality of politicians in developing countries. Drawing on unique experimental and survey data on village-level politicians in West Bengal, India, we find some evidence of positive selection into office: elected politicians are more educat…
Time in Office and the Changing Gender Gap in Dishonesty
Increasing the share of women in politics is often promoted as a means to reduce corruption. Recent studies indicate the importance of considering the gender gap in corruption as a dynamic, rather than static, phenomenon. Our study combines data from surveys and incentivized behavioral games among 400 inexperienced and experienced local politicians in West Bengal, India. We find no gender gap in attitudes toward corruption. However, in incentiviz…
Social Mobility in Developing Countries
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases a…
Employee Referral, Social Proximity, and Worker Discipline
We propose a new theory to explain why employers mobilize workplace insiders for the hiring of new staff. In settings with incomplete contracts, we show how workplace insiders can help employers tackle recruit discipline challenges at a lower cost. A key idea is that the employer can use sanctions against the referee to keep the new hire in line. Our model predicts that employers will use existing staff of stature and with accumulated goodwill wi…
Beyond Poverty Escapes—Social Mobility in Developing Countries
While social mobility in advanced economies has received extensive scholarly attention, crucial knowledge gaps remain about the patterns and determinants of income, educational, and occupational mobility in developing countries. Focusing on intergenerational mobility, we find that estimates often differ greatly for the same country, depending on the concept and measure of mobility used, on variable constructions and on the data set utilized. Ther…
All You Need is Cable TV
Robert Jensen and Emily Oster find that arrival of cable TV in rural India reduces women's tolerance of spousal violence, son preference and fertility, and increases women's autonomy, and school enrolment. These results are mostly replicated using their data and code. However, cable TV does not affect uneducated women. Theoretically informed index construction reduces the tolerance of violence effect, and weakens that on autonomy. We have statist…
Women Political Leaders, Corruption, and Learning
We exploit randomly assigned political quotas for women to identify the impact of women’s political leadership on corruption and on the governance of India’s largest poverty-alleviation program to date. Using survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. This is at odds with claims of …
Caste Dominance and Economic Performance in Rural India
Using household panel data for rural India covering 1993–94 and 2004–5, we test whether scheduled castes (SCs) and other minority groups perform better or worse in terms of income when resident in villages dominated by (i) upper castes or (ii) their own group. Theoretically, upper-caste dominance comprises a potential “proximity gain” and offsetting group-specific “oppression” effects. For SCs and other backward classes (OBCs), initial proximity …
On the Colonial Origins of Agricultural Development in India
Banerjee and Iyer find that districts which the British assigned to landlord revenue systems systematically underperform districts with non-landlord based revenue systems in agricultural performance, after the onset of the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s. Based on colonial documents, archival research and the work of historians, we correct a mis-interpretation of the land revenue system in Central Provinces, which BI characterise as landlord ba…
Misfortune, misfits and what the city gave and took
We use a primary data-set comprising the work-life histories of 90 individuals from Coastal and central Karnataka who migrated for work to Mumbai, Bangalore and other destinations sometime between 1935 and 2005. These migrants were all below the age of 15 at the time of leaving home, and their work-life histories provide a unique platform for studying persistence, change and spatial variation in relation to the incidence and causes of child labou…
Do Spouses Realise Cooperative Gains? Experimental Evidence from Rural Uganda
Job Recruitment Networks and Migration to Cities in India
Economists have focused on job search and supply-side explanations for network effects in labour transactions. This paper develops and tests an alternative explanation for the high prevalence of network-based labour market entry in developing countries. In our theoretical framework, employers use employee networks as screening and incentive mechanisms to improve the quality of recruitment. Our framework suggests a negative relationship between ne…
Literacy Sharing, Assortative Mating, or What? Labour Market Advantages and Proximate Illiteracy Revisited
This paper explores the relationship between household literacy and the labour market outcomes of illiterate household members which Basu, Narayan and Ravallion (2002 Basu, K., Narayan, A. and Ravallion, M. 2002. Is literacy shared within households? Theory and evidence from Bangladesh. Labour Economics, 8(6): 649–665. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) report using Household Income and Expenditure data from Bangladesh. BNR attrib…
High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture
What the signboard hides
In India, there are strong and intimate links between traditional notions of caste, purity and pollution and the preparation and consumption of food. This article studies trajectories of social change within small South Indian eating places, popularly known as Udupi hotels. During the second half of the 20th century such enterprises absorbed a large number of unskilled migrants, mainly from Karnataka's coastal belt. We explore the relationship be…
Intra-Household Inequality
In this paper, the author examines the capability approach and how it applies in the context of individuals and families living together on unequal terms. The interpretations of agency, freedom, and choice in Sen's framework are analyzed from a feminist perspective, and the author suggests that these important concepts invite special attention in the presence of domestic power imbalances. Problems with the interpretations embedded in the capabili…
Autonomy in Child Labor Migrants
Autonomy in Child Labor Migrants
Do Spouses Realise Cooperative Gains? Experimental Evidence from Rural Uganda
Intra-Household Inequality
In this paper, the author examines the capability approach and how it applies in the context of individuals and families living together on unequal terms. The interpretations of agency, freedom, and choice in Sen's framework are analyzed from a feminist perspective, and the author suggests that these important concepts invite special attention in the presence of domestic power imbalances. Problems with the interpretations embedded in the capabili…
What the signboard hides
In India, there are strong and intimate links between traditional notions of caste, purity and pollution and the preparation and consumption of food. This article studies trajectories of social change within small South Indian eating places, popularly known as Udupi hotels. During the second half of the 20th century such enterprises absorbed a large number of unskilled migrants, mainly from Karnataka's coastal belt. We explore the relationship be…
Women Political Leaders, Corruption, and Learning
We exploit randomly assigned political quotas for women to identify the impact of women’s political leadership on corruption and on the governance of India’s largest poverty-alleviation program to date. Using survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. This is at odds with claims of …
Time in Office and the Changing Gender Gap in Dishonesty
Increasing the share of women in politics is often promoted as a means to reduce corruption. Recent studies indicate the importance of considering the gender gap in corruption as a dynamic, rather than static, phenomenon. Our study combines data from surveys and incentivized behavioral games among 400 inexperienced and experienced local politicians in West Bengal, India. We find no gender gap in attitudes toward corruption. However, in incentiviz…
Caste Dominance and Economic Performance in Rural India
Using household panel data for rural India covering 1993–94 and 2004–5, we test whether scheduled castes (SCs) and other minority groups perform better or worse in terms of income when resident in villages dominated by (i) upper castes or (ii) their own group. Theoretically, upper-caste dominance comprises a potential “proximity gain” and offsetting group-specific “oppression” effects. For SCs and other backward classes (OBCs), initial proximity …
Autonomy in Child Labor Migrants
Intra-Household Inequality
In this paper, the author examines the capability approach and how it applies in the context of individuals and families living together on unequal terms. The interpretations of agency, freedom, and choice in Sen's framework are analyzed from a feminist perspective, and the author suggests that these important concepts invite special attention in the presence of domestic power imbalances. Problems with the interpretations embedded in the capabili…
High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture
What the signboard hides
In India, there are strong and intimate links between traditional notions of caste, purity and pollution and the preparation and consumption of food. This article studies trajectories of social change within small South Indian eating places, popularly known as Udupi hotels. During the second half of the 20th century such enterprises absorbed a large number of unskilled migrants, mainly from Karnataka's coastal belt. We explore the relationship be…
Literacy Sharing, Assortative Mating, or What? Labour Market Advantages and Proximate Illiteracy Revisited
This paper explores the relationship between household literacy and the labour market outcomes of illiterate household members which Basu, Narayan and Ravallion (2002 Basu, K., Narayan, A. and Ravallion, M. 2002. Is literacy shared within households? Theory and evidence from Bangladesh. Labour Economics, 8(6): 649–665. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) report using Household Income and Expenditure data from Bangladesh. BNR attrib…
Job Recruitment Networks and Migration to Cities in India
Economists have focused on job search and supply-side explanations for network effects in labour transactions. This paper develops and tests an alternative explanation for the high prevalence of network-based labour market entry in developing countries. In our theoretical framework, employers use employee networks as screening and incentive mechanisms to improve the quality of recruitment. Our framework suggests a negative relationship between ne…
Do Spouses Realise Cooperative Gains? Experimental Evidence from Rural Uganda
Misfortune, misfits and what the city gave and took
We use a primary data-set comprising the work-life histories of 90 individuals from Coastal and central Karnataka who migrated for work to Mumbai, Bangalore and other destinations sometime between 1935 and 2005. These migrants were all below the age of 15 at the time of leaving home, and their work-life histories provide a unique platform for studying persistence, change and spatial variation in relation to the incidence and causes of child labou…
On the Colonial Origins of Agricultural Development in India
Banerjee and Iyer find that districts which the British assigned to landlord revenue systems systematically underperform districts with non-landlord based revenue systems in agricultural performance, after the onset of the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s. Based on colonial documents, archival research and the work of historians, we correct a mis-interpretation of the land revenue system in Central Provinces, which BI characterise as landlord ba…
Caste Dominance and Economic Performance in Rural India
Using household panel data for rural India covering 1993–94 and 2004–5, we test whether scheduled castes (SCs) and other minority groups perform better or worse in terms of income when resident in villages dominated by (i) upper castes or (ii) their own group. Theoretically, upper-caste dominance comprises a potential “proximity gain” and offsetting group-specific “oppression” effects. For SCs and other backward classes (OBCs), initial proximity …
Women Political Leaders, Corruption, and Learning
We exploit randomly assigned political quotas for women to identify the impact of women’s political leadership on corruption and on the governance of India’s largest poverty-alleviation program to date. Using survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. This is at odds with claims of …
All You Need is Cable TV
Robert Jensen and Emily Oster find that arrival of cable TV in rural India reduces women's tolerance of spousal violence, son preference and fertility, and increases women's autonomy, and school enrolment. These results are mostly replicated using their data and code. However, cable TV does not affect uneducated women. Theoretically informed index construction reduces the tolerance of violence effect, and weakens that on autonomy. We have statist…
Beyond Poverty Escapes—Social Mobility in Developing Countries
While social mobility in advanced economies has received extensive scholarly attention, crucial knowledge gaps remain about the patterns and determinants of income, educational, and occupational mobility in developing countries. Focusing on intergenerational mobility, we find that estimates often differ greatly for the same country, depending on the concept and measure of mobility used, on variable constructions and on the data set utilized. Ther…
Social Mobility in Developing Countries
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases a…
Employee Referral, Social Proximity, and Worker Discipline
We propose a new theory to explain why employers mobilize workplace insiders for the hiring of new staff. In settings with incomplete contracts, we show how workplace insiders can help employers tackle recruit discipline challenges at a lower cost. A key idea is that the employer can use sanctions against the referee to keep the new hire in line. Our model predicts that employers will use existing staff of stature and with accumulated goodwill wi…
Time in Office and the Changing Gender Gap in Dishonesty
Increasing the share of women in politics is often promoted as a means to reduce corruption. Recent studies indicate the importance of considering the gender gap in corruption as a dynamic, rather than static, phenomenon. Our study combines data from surveys and incentivized behavioral games among 400 inexperienced and experienced local politicians in West Bengal, India. We find no gender gap in attitudes toward corruption. However, in incentiviz…
Selecting the ‘Best’? Competing Dimensions of Politician Quality in the Developing World
Evidence suggests that politicians in advanced democracies are positively selected on characteristics relevant to their suitability for political office. Whereas stereotypes abound, much less is known about the quality of politicians in developing countries. Drawing on unique experimental and survey data on village-level politicians in West Bengal, India, we find some evidence of positive selection into office: elected politicians are more educat…
Barriers or catalysts? Traditional institutions and social mobility in rural India
We examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. Theoretically, we distinguish between upper caste and own group dominance and examine the mechanisms underpinning inequality in mobility outcomes. We find inequality in upward educational mobility to have significantly narrowed over time. Scheduled Castes (SCs) have h…
Economics (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Economic growth (8 works) · Geography (8 works) · Demographic economics (7 works) · Labour economics (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business (5 works)