Rohini Pande
Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University.
Her work has examined how institutions – ranging from electoral to financial – can be designed to empower historically disadvantaged groups; how low-cost improvements in information collection and dissemination can enable flexible regulation and more efficient outcomes in areas as diverse as environmental protection and elections; and how biased social norms, unless challenged by public policy, can worsen individual well-being and reduce economic efficiency.
Her other current affiliations include Executive Committee member of the Bureau of Research on Economic Development (BREAD), co-chair of the Political Economy and Government Group at Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), board member at Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her publications have appeared in the top economics and policy journals.
Pande received a PhD in economics from London School of Economics, a Master’s from Oxford University and BA in Economics from Delhi University.
Content by Rohini Pande
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Data: Third-party environmental auditing
In many regulated markets, private, third-party auditors are chosen and paid by the firms that they audit, potentially creating a conflict of interest. This article reports on a two-year field experiment in the Indian state of Gujarat that sought to curb such a conflict by altering the market structure for environmental audits of industrial plants to incentivize accurate...
1 Mar 2019
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Data: Long-run effects of repayment flexibility in microfinance: Evidence from India
Financiers across the world structure debt contracts to limit the risk of entrepreneurial lending. But debt structures that reduce risk may inhibit enterprise growth, especially among the poor. Using a field experiment we quantify the short- and long-run tradeoffs associated with the classic microfinance debt contract. We contrast the classic contract which requires that...
1 Mar 2019
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Data: The impact of electronic procurement of public works contracts in Indonesia and India
Poorly functioning, and often corrupt, public procurement procedures are widely faulted for the low quality of infrastructure provision in developing countries. Can electronic procurement (e-procurement), which reduces both the cost of acquiring tender information and personal interaction between bidders and procurement ocials, ameliorate these problems? In this paper we...
27 Feb 2019
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Publication - Project Report
Decentralisation and candidate selection
15 Nov 2018 | Rohini Pande, Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Soledad Artiz Prillaman
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Blog post
Vocational training programs in India are leaving women behind, but this needn’t be the case
Less than 25% of women are employed in their skilled job for more than three months and are also less likely to receive and accept job offers than men. Migration is a key constraint, with job location being a strong predictor of female outcomes. Skill India Many low- and middle-income countries have launched government-funded vocational training programmes to help youth...
23 Feb 2018 | Charity Troyer Moore, Rohini Pande, Soledad Artiz Prillaman
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Project
Decentralisation and candidate selection
The recent local elections and decentralisation in Nepal pose an unprecedented opportunity to understand the impact of decentralisation on governance and service delivery. Nepal’s is one of the world’s most ambitious decentralisation processes, as it includes both political and fiscal decentralisation over a very short period of time. A key goal of decentralisation...
18 Jan 2018 | Rohini Pande, Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Soledad Artiz Prillaman
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Blog post
Access to credit and female labour force participation in India
Women’s physical access to microfinance loans from the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Bank, correlates with the probability of accessing loans, which in turn correlates with the likelihood of working in the long-run. Financial empowerment and labour Access to microfinance loans provides resources for home-based work and places financial decision-making power...
29 Aug 2017 | Erica Field, Rohini Pande, José Martinez
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Blog post
Star power: Maharashtra starts rating industries by emissions
An Indian state programme is aiming to curb air pollution by facilitating transparency in industry emissions, using ratings and targets that the public can view online. Measuring industry emissions The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) launched a new Star Rating Programme for air pollution on June 5, 2017–World Environment Day. The programme uses smoke-stack...
10 Jul 2017 | Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan
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Blog post
Constructing housing for the poor without destroying their communities
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana aims to achieve housing for all by 2022. However, vacancy of 23% was reported last year in urban housing built under the programme. In this article, Rohini Pande, contends that take-up can be increased if policies are designed in a way that allows the intended beneficiaries to preserve their social networks when they relocate. We have passed...
28 Mar 2017 | Rohini Pande
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Blog post
Getting India's women into the workforce: Time for a smart approach
In this article, Rohini Pande, the Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, contends that raising India’s stubbornly low rate of female labour force participation will require behavioural interventions that address social norms. Between 1990 and 2015, India’s real GDP (gross domestic product) per capita grew from US$375 to US$1572, but its...
20 Mar 2017 | Rohini Pande
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Project
Building environmental regulation that enables growth
This project addresses the problem of industrial particulate matter pollution through improved regulatory monitoring. The study is a randomised-controlled trial in which treatment plants install Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS), and researchers measure resultant pollution abatement decisions and regulatory actions over time. Preliminary results show...
2 Feb 2017 | Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan
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Project
Clearing the air: The effects of transparency on plant pollution emissions
India is choking on growth. Of the 20 cities in the world with the worst fine particulate air pollution, 13 are in India, meaning the average Indian loses about three years of his or her life due to the harm of this pollution There is also growing evidence that high levels of pollution lower labour productivity and, therefore, potentially economic growth. If good...
24 Nov 2016 | Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Working Paper
Does women’s banking matter for women? Evidence from urban India
23 Nov 2016 | Erica Field, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Project Report
Building environmental regulation that enables growth
11 Nov 2016 | Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan, Rohini Pande, Anant Sudarshan
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Project
Moving in or dropping out? India's female migrants and urban labour force integration
One important, yet understudied, constraint to FLFP is women’s inability to successfully migrate to where the jobs are - cities. In our pilot, young women and parents report being concerned for their safety when considering migrating to a major city for a job, but still reporting similar willingness to migrate for work as young men. Therefore, with proper support, young...
27 Oct 2016 | Rohini Pande, Charity Troyer Moore, Soledad Artiz Prillaman
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Publication - Project Memo
Does improved regulatory enforcement reduce industrial pollution? (Project Memo)
9 Feb 2016 | Michael Greenstone, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Working Paper
Why Are Indian Children Shorter Than African Children?
22 Sep 2015 | Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande
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Project
Access to credit and female labour supply in India
Access to microfinance integrates women into the labour force in the long run. This effect is driven by a greater participation of women in household business activity, but does not seem to be associated with a sustainable change in female empowerment. Results also suggest that as a consequence of increasing participation in the labour force, greater...
28 Aug 2015 | Erica Field, Rohini Pande
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Blog post
Keeping women safe
Since the 2012 Delhi gang rape, numerous policies have been proposed to improve the safety of women. However, perversely, many of the policies designed to protect women may have made them less safe
5 Jan 2015 | Rohini Pande
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Blog post
Why the firstborn is more likely to succeed in life
Physical height is an important economic variable reflecting health and human capital. Puzzlingly, however, differences in average height across developing countries are not well explained by differences in wealth. We cannot close the malnutrition gap without addressing the social norms and economic rationales that deprive girls and younger siblings of the resources they...
4 Nov 2014 | Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande
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Project
Enhancing local public service delivery: Experimental evidence on the national rural employment guarantee scheme in Bihar
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MG-NREGS) is among the largest social protection programs in the world. In 2009-2010, administrative sources reported that MG-NREGS provided employment to 53.5 million households. Despite its impressive scale, in some states, including some of the poorest States of India like Bihar, the scheme appears to fall...
10 Oct 2014 | Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Policy Brief
Services Delivery and Centralization in Urban Slums (Policy Brief)
10 Oct 2014 | Abhijit Banerjee, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Project
Emissions trading as an environmental innovation in India: Measuring the policy impact on emissions and abatement costs
Growth in developing countries has improved living standards for millions, but has led to high pollution concentrations and serious public health damages. Market based environmental regulation can reduce the costs of pollution reduction and thus transform the trade-off between environmental quality and growth. This study will measure the effects of a pilot emissions...
10 Oct 2014 | Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan
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Project
Smart data: Can Visualised Administrative Data Help Inform and Hold Public Stakeholders Accountable?
“Smart” data collection (using smartphones, biometrics, etc.) receives attention as a means to augment low-income states’ capacity. However, little attention has focused on how monitoring and accountability policies can harness extensive administrative data already being generated to improve programs and public accountability. We study how to turn big data into...
1 Oct 2014 | Rohini Pande, Eric Dodge, Charity Troyer Moore
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Project
Urban Governance and Poverty Reduction in Delhi's Slums
India is under-urbanized relative to her income level, leading to widespread expectations of large-scale rural-to-urban migration in coming years. An old and new literature posits that cities underpin long-term economic dynamism, through the spatial concentration of skills and ideas. This project aims to highlight the constraints placed on such dynamism by low-quality...
4 Sep 2014 | Abhijit Banerjee, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton, Anjali Bharadwaj
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Project
Public goods, location choice and the voting decisions of the urban poor
India is under-urbanized relative to her income level, leading to widespread expectations of large-scale rural-to-urban migration in coming years. An old and new literature posits that cities underpin long-term economic dynamism, through the spatial concentration of skills and ideas. This project aims to highlight the constraints placed on such dynamism by low-quality...
4 Sep 2014 | Abhijit Banerjee, Anjali Bharadwaj, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Project
The impact of electronic procurement of public works contracts in Indonesia and India
Electronic procurement is widely believed to enhance transparency in procurement practice by addressing two concerns with manual procurement practices: collusion among bidders; and corruption. E-procurement can reduce collusion among bidders by providing information about tenders to a wide range of interested firms, allowing more firms to participate and breaking up local...
4 Sep 2014 | Rohini Pande, Benjamin Olken
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Publication - Working Paper
Can Electronic Procurement Improve Infrastructure Provision? (Working Paper)
14 Jul 2014 | Sean Lewis-Faupel, Yusuf Neggers, Benjamin Olken, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Policy Brief
Can Electronic Procurement Improve Infrastructure Provision? (Policy Brief)
1 Jul 2014 | Sean Lewis-Faupel, Yusuf Neggers, Benjamin Olken, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Working Paper
Truth-Telling by Third-Party Auditors and the Response of Polluting Firms
1 Oct 2013 | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan
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Publication - Working Paper
Truth-Telling by Third-Party Auditors and the Response of Polluting Firms
1 Oct 2013 | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan
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Publication - Policy Brief
Inducing Indian Plants to Abate Pollution (Policy Brief)
1 Jan 2013 | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan
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Publication - Working Paper
Delhi’s Slum-Dwellers: Deprivation, Preferences and Political Engagement among the Urban Poor (Working Paper)
22 Oct 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Publication - Policy Brief
Delhi’s Slum-Dwellers: Deprivation, Preferences and Political Engagement among the Urban Poor (Policy Brief)
1 Oct 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Anjali Bharadwaj, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Publication - Working Paper
Delhi’s Slum-Dwellers: Deprivation, Preferences and Political Engagement among the Urban Poor (Working Paper)
1 Oct 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Anjali Bharadwaj, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Project
The Enigma of Malnutrition in India
One third of the world’s malnourished children live in India. Puzzlingly, the child malnutrition rate in India is higher than in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, yet on most other indicators of development, including other health indicators, India fares better than Africa. This problem has drawn the attention of top leaders in India. In January 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan...
1 Jul 2012 | Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande
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Project
Investigating the relationship between poor sanitation infrastructure and water quality in Delhi’s slums
India is under-urbanized relative to her income level, leading to widespread expectations of large-scale rural-to-urban migration in coming years. An old and new literature posits that cities underpin long-term economic dynamism, through the spatial concentration of skills and ideas. This project aims to highlight the constraints placed on such dynamism by low-quality...
1 Jul 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton, Anjali Bharadwaj
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Project
Does improved regulatory enforcement reduce industrial pollution? An evaluation of public and private sector approaches
Industrial regulation in India has a history of heavyhandedness, with industrial licensing and labour regulations impeding economic growth Study assesses how technology and market mechanisms can support environmental regulation policies that can minimise the social costs of energy consumption The study found that reforms for auditor independence can...
1 Apr 2012 | Michael Greenstone, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan
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Publication - Policy Brief
Emissions Trading as an Environmental Innovation in India: Measuring the Policy Impact on Emissions and Abatement Costs (Policy Brief)
31 Mar 2012 | Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan
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Publication - Policy Brief
Enhancing Local Public Service Delivery (Policy Brief)
1 Mar 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Policy Brief
Services Delivery and Centralization in Urban Slums (Policy Brief)
1 Mar 2012 | Abhijit Banerjee, Rohini Pande, Michael Walton
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Publication - Working Paper
Enhancing Local Public Service Delivery (Final Report)
10 Aug 2011 | Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande
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Publication - Policy Brief
Long Run-Effects of Repayment Flexibility in Microfinance: Evidence from India (Policy Brief)
1 Jun 2011 | Erica Field, Rohini Pande, John Papp, Natalia Rigol
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Publication - Working Paper
Long Run-Effects of Repayment Flexibility in Microfinance: Evidence from India (Working Paper)
25 Feb 2011 | Erica Field, Rohini Pande, John Papp, Natalia Rigol
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Project
Long Run-Effects of Repayment Flexibility in Microfinance: Evidence from India
As governments decide on the optimal regulation for the microfinance sector, key questions include the appropriate interest rate and repayment structure. This project investigates the benefits and costs of introducing greater flexibility into the classic repayment structure of microfinance institution (MFI) loans, which requires small installments starting immediately after...
1 Sep 2009 | Rohini Pande, Erica Field, John Papp, Natalia Rigol
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Project
Third-party environmental auditing
High levels of industrial pollution are a harmful byproduct of growth. The Indian state of Gujarat is an industrial powerhouse with about 5 percent of the Indian population, but 9 percent of India's registered manufacturing employment and 19 percent of output (Authors' calculation, Annual Survey of Industries, 2004-05). This growth has been accompanied by a degradation of...
1 Jun 2009 | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan