Abhijit V Banerjee
Biographic Data
| ID | 1456739 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Abhijit V Banerjee |
| GIVEN NAMES | Abhijit V |
| FAMILY NAME | Banerjee |
| SIGNATURE | BANERJEE A V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 490 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
How important are matching frictions in the labor market? Experimental & non-experimental evidence from a large Indian firm
Consensus and Disagreement: Information Aggregation Under (Not so) Naive Learning
Debunking the Stereotype of the Lazy Welfare Recipient: Evidence from Cash Transfer Programs
Targeted transfer programs for poor citizens have become increasingly common in the developing world. Yet, a common concern among policy-makers and citizens is that such programs tend to discourage work. We re-analyze the data from seven randomized controlled trials of government-run cash transfer programs in six developing countries throughout the world, and find no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work.
Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network
Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India
Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as a key to improving their quality. We conducted a randomized evaluation of three interventions to encourage beneficiaries' participation to India: providing information on existing institutions, training community members in a testing tool for children, and training volunteers to hold remedial reading camps. These interventions had no impact on community in…
Giving Credit Where It Is Due
In the last few years, field experiments have emerged as an attractive new tool in the effort to elaborate our understanding of economic issues relevant to poor countries and poor people. By enabling the researcher to precisely control the variation in the data, field experiments allow the estimation of parameters and testing of hypotheses that would be very difficult to implement with observational data. The results of this body of empirical wor…
The Experimental Approach to Development Economics
Randomized experiments have become a popular tool in development economics research and have been the subject of a number of criticisms. This paper reviews the recent literature and discusses the strengths and limitations of this approach in theory and in practice. We argue that the main virtue of randomized experiments is that, owing to the close collaboration between researchers and implementers, they allow the estimation of parameters that wou…
Putting a Band-Aid on a Corpse: Incentives for Nurses in the Indian Public Health Care System
The public Indian health care system is plagued by high staff absence, low effort by providers, and limited use by potential beneficiaries who prefer private alternatives. This artice reports the results of an experiment carried out with a district administration and a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The presence of government nurses in government public health facilities (subcenters and aid-posts) was recorded by the NGO, and the government …
What is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World
We expect a lot from the middle classes. At least three distinct arguments about the special economic role of the middle class are traditionally made. In one, new entrepreneurs armed with a capacity and a tolerance for delayed gratification emerge from the middle class and create employment and productivity growth for the rest of society. In a second, perhaps more conventional view, the middle class is primarily a source of vital inputs for the e…
The Economic Lives of the Poor
The 1990 World Development Report from the World Bank defined the "extremely poor" people of the world as those who are currently living on no more than $1 per day per person. But how actually does one live on less than $1 per day? This essay is about the economic lives of the extremely poor: the choices they face, the constraints they grapple with, and the challenges they meet. A number of recent data sets and a body of new research allow us to …
Chapter 7 Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics
Volatility and Growth: Credit Constraints and Productivity-Enhancing Investment
Eviction threats and investment incentives
Educational policy and the economics of the family
Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?
Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal
The paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity. Theoretically, the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects: a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect. Analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the India…
Currency Crises and Monetary Policy in an Economy with Credit Constraints
Occupational Choice and the Process of Development
This paper models economic development as a process of institutional transformation by focusing on the interplay between agents' occupational decisions and the distribution of wealth. Becau se of capital-market imperfections, poor agents choose working for a wa ge over self-employment and wealthy agents become entrepreneurs who monitor workers. Only with sufficient inequality, however, will ther e be employment contracts; otherwise, there is eith…
Occupational Choice and the Process of Development
This paper models economic development as a process of institutional transformation by focusing on the interplay between agents' occupational decisions and the distribution of wealth. Becau se of capital-market imperfections, poor agents choose working for a wa ge over self-employment and wealthy agents become entrepreneurs who monitor workers. Only with sufficient inequality, however, will ther e be employment contracts; otherwise, there is eith…
The Economic Lives of the Poor
The 1990 World Development Report from the World Bank defined the "extremely poor" people of the world as those who are currently living on no more than $1 per day per person. But how actually does one live on less than $1 per day? This essay is about the economic lives of the extremely poor: the choices they face, the constraints they grapple with, and the challenges they meet. A number of recent data sets and a body of new research allow us to …
Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal
The paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity. Theoretically, the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects: a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect. Analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the India…
What is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World
We expect a lot from the middle classes. At least three distinct arguments about the special economic role of the middle class are traditionally made. In one, new entrepreneurs armed with a capacity and a tolerance for delayed gratification emerge from the middle class and create employment and productivity growth for the rest of society. In a second, perhaps more conventional view, the middle class is primarily a source of vital inputs for the e…
Eviction threats and investment incentives
Giving Credit Where It Is Due
In the last few years, field experiments have emerged as an attractive new tool in the effort to elaborate our understanding of economic issues relevant to poor countries and poor people. By enabling the researcher to precisely control the variation in the data, field experiments allow the estimation of parameters and testing of hypotheses that would be very difficult to implement with observational data. The results of this body of empirical wor…
Educational policy and the economics of the family
Occupational Choice and the Process of Development
This paper models economic development as a process of institutional transformation by focusing on the interplay between agents' occupational decisions and the distribution of wealth. Becau se of capital-market imperfections, poor agents choose working for a wa ge over self-employment and wealthy agents become entrepreneurs who monitor workers. Only with sufficient inequality, however, will ther e be employment contracts; otherwise, there is eith…
Currency Crises and Monetary Policy in an Economy with Credit Constraints
Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal
The paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity. Theoretically, the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects: a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect. Analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the India…
Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?
Eviction threats and investment incentives
Educational policy and the economics of the family
Chapter 7 Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics
Volatility and Growth: Credit Constraints and Productivity-Enhancing Investment
The Economic Lives of the Poor
The 1990 World Development Report from the World Bank defined the "extremely poor" people of the world as those who are currently living on no more than $1 per day per person. But how actually does one live on less than $1 per day? This essay is about the economic lives of the extremely poor: the choices they face, the constraints they grapple with, and the challenges they meet. A number of recent data sets and a body of new research allow us to …
Putting a Band-Aid on a Corpse: Incentives for Nurses in the Indian Public Health Care System
The public Indian health care system is plagued by high staff absence, low effort by providers, and limited use by potential beneficiaries who prefer private alternatives. This artice reports the results of an experiment carried out with a district administration and a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The presence of government nurses in government public health facilities (subcenters and aid-posts) was recorded by the NGO, and the government …
What is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World
We expect a lot from the middle classes. At least three distinct arguments about the special economic role of the middle class are traditionally made. In one, new entrepreneurs armed with a capacity and a tolerance for delayed gratification emerge from the middle class and create employment and productivity growth for the rest of society. In a second, perhaps more conventional view, the middle class is primarily a source of vital inputs for the e…
The Experimental Approach to Development Economics
Randomized experiments have become a popular tool in development economics research and have been the subject of a number of criticisms. This paper reviews the recent literature and discusses the strengths and limitations of this approach in theory and in practice. We argue that the main virtue of randomized experiments is that, owing to the close collaboration between researchers and implementers, they allow the estimation of parameters that wou…
Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India
Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as a key to improving their quality. We conducted a randomized evaluation of three interventions to encourage beneficiaries' participation to India: providing information on existing institutions, training community members in a testing tool for children, and training volunteers to hold remedial reading camps. These interventions had no impact on community in…
Giving Credit Where It Is Due
In the last few years, field experiments have emerged as an attractive new tool in the effort to elaborate our understanding of economic issues relevant to poor countries and poor people. By enabling the researcher to precisely control the variation in the data, field experiments allow the estimation of parameters and testing of hypotheses that would be very difficult to implement with observational data. The results of this body of empirical wor…
Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network
Debunking the Stereotype of the Lazy Welfare Recipient: Evidence from Cash Transfer Programs
Targeted transfer programs for poor citizens have become increasingly common in the developing world. Yet, a common concern among policy-makers and citizens is that such programs tend to discourage work. We re-analyze the data from seven randomized controlled trials of government-run cash transfer programs in six developing countries throughout the world, and find no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work.
Consensus and Disagreement: Information Aggregation Under (Not so) Naive Learning
How important are matching frictions in the labor market? Experimental & non-experimental evidence from a large Indian firm
Economics (15 works) · Business (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Economic growth (6 works) · Economic Theory and Policy (5 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (5 works) · Microeconomics (5 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (5 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works)