Locus of decision-making: Understanding a decentralized flagship programme on health in India

Fiscal Decentralisation and Economic Development: The Kerala Experience signifies a substantial contribution of the trends in the central government’s fiscal transfers and its impact on Kerala and all state finances between the fiscal years 1980–81 and 2012–13. Regional disparity in resource transfer and economic development are often sources of political tensions and dissatisfaction in a federal system. The fundamental economic argument advanced in favour of decentralised government activity has been that decentralisation is a means to enhance the efficiency of government activity, to increase social welfare and to promote economic development and growth. Despite constitutional recognition of the third tier in 1992, analysis of fiscal decentralisation incorporating the role and functions of the third tier in conjunction with the first two tiers does not exist. This study is an attempt to provide a more complete picture of the fiscal federalism in Kerala incorporating all the three tiers of government. Before the policymakers shift to some new theories on deciding the allocation of very valuable scarce national resources to states through the Finance Commission and Planning Commission and thereby providing strong incentives to influence the development strategy of states, it is pertinent that we consider some empirical relationships from the data on Indian states and this book hopes to provide some insight into this direction, which will be highly useful to policy makers, administrators and academics.

To ensure that people's needs are met, governments decentralise the way policies are designed and implemented. This conference proceedings presents the points of view from a variety of countries in the area of labour market policy.

In the Global South, indigenous people have been continuously subjected to top-down, and often violent, processes of post-colonial state and nation building. This book examines the development dilemmas of the indigenous people (adivasis) of the Indian state of Kerala. It explores the different facets of change in their lives and livelihoods in the context of modernisation under different political regimes. As part of the Indian Union, Kerala followed a development approach in tune with the Government of India with regard to indigenous communities. However, within the framework of India’s quasi-federal polity, the state of Kerala has been tracing a development path of its own, which has come to be known as the ‘Kerala model of development’. Adopting a historical political economic approach, the book locates the adivasi communities in the larger contextual shifts from late colonialism through the post-independence years, and critically analyses the Kerala model of development with particular reference to the adivasis’ changing political status and rights to land. It pays special attention to policy dynamics in the neoliberal phase, and the actual practices of decentralisation as a way of including the socially excluded and marginalised. Offering a theoretical elaboration of the interaction between class and indigeneity based on intensive fieldwork in Kerala, the book addresses adivasi development in relation to the general development experience of Kerala, and goes on to relate this particular study to the global context of indigenous people’s struggles. It will be of interest to those working in the fields of South Asian Development, Political Economy and South Asian Politics.

This book analyzes decentralisation, regional development paths and success factors in different governance sectors in Ghana, the Philippines, Tanzania and Chile, and discuss overarching aspects of relevance. Decentralisation, which refers to the delegation of administrative responsibilities, political decision-making and fiscal powers to lower levels of government, is now considered one of the most efficient engines of development. In Sub-Saharan Africa decentralised states have made more progress in reducing poverty than those states with lower decentralisation scores. But in many countries, decentralisation is still considered a ‘work in progress’ with unsatisfactory results. From a spatial point of view, the link between decentralisation and regional and district development is particularly interesting. Both in the North and in the South, regional or district development is seen as holding the potential for advancing social and economic development, and even more so in decentralised political settings. Space-based networks at the regional or district level are considered instrumental for responding to locally specific challenges, e.g. in areas lagging behind economically.

Contributed articles presented at two seminars on regional planning and participatory rural development predominantly on West Bengal held at Dept. of Economics with Rural Development, Vidyasagar University.

OECD's 1972 Economic Survey of Yugoslavia examines economic policies, medium-term trends adn problems, and the broad economic implications of constitutional reform before drawing a series of conclusions.

PART A : STATISTICS FOR ECONOMICS Unit I : Introduction 1. What is Economics ?, 2. Statistics : Meaning, Scope and Importance. Unit II : Collection, Organisation and Presentation of Data 3.Collection of Data : Primary and Secondary Data, 4. Methods of Data Collection : Census and Sampling Methods, 5. Some Important Sources of Secondary Data : Census and N.S.S.O., 6. Organization of Data : Classification, 7. Presentation of Data : Tables, 8. Diagrammatic Presentation of Data, 9. Graphic (Time Series and Frequency Distribution) Presentation of Data. Unit III : Statistical Tools and Interpretation 10. Measures of Central Tendency: Arithmetic Average, 11. Measures of Central Tendency : Median and Mode, 12. Measures of Dispersion, 13. Correlation, 14. Index Number, 15. Some Mathematical Tools Used in Economics : Slope of a Line, Slope of a Curve and Equation of a Line. Unit IV : Developing Projects in Economics 16. Formation of Project in Economics. PART B : INDIAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Unit V : Development Experience, (1947-90) and Economic Reforms Since 1991 1. State of Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence, 2. Common Goals of Five Year Plans in India, 3. Agriculture—Features, Problems and Policies, 4. Industries : Features, Problems & Policies (Industrial Licensing etc.), 5. Foreign Trade of India—Features, Problems and Policies. Unit VI : Economic Reforms Since 1991 6.Economic Reforms in India—Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (L.P.G.) Policies. Unit VII : Current Challenges facing Indian Economy 7. Poverty and Main Programmes of Poverty Alleviation, 8. Rural Development : Key Issues, 9. Human Capital Formation, 10. Employment : Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues, 11. Inflation : Problems and Policies, 12. Infrastructure : Meaning and Types (Case Studies : Energy and Health), 13. Sustainable Economic Development and Environment. Unit VIII : Development Experience of India 14.Development Experience of India : A Comparison with Pakistan & China.

It is widely accepted that countries' institutions play a major role in their economic development. Yet, the way they affect, and are affected by, development, and how to reform them are still poorly understood. In this companion volume, State and Business in Tanzania diagnoses the main weaknesses, root causes, and developmental consequences of Tanzania's institutions, and shows that the uncertainty surrounding its development paths and its difficulty in truly 'taking off' are related to institutional challenges. Based on a thorough account of the economic, social, and political development of the country, this diagnostic offers evidence on the quality of its institutions and a detailed analysis of critical institution- and development-sensitive areas among which state-business relations rank high, even though the institutional features of land management, civil service and the power sector are shown to be also of prime importance. This title is also available as Open Access.

This book describes the transition in Indian healthcare system since independence and contributes to the ongoing debate within development and institutional economics on the approaches towards reform in the public health system. The institutional reform perspective focuses on examining the effective utilisation of allotted resources and improvements in delivery through decentralisation in governance by ensuring higher participation of elected governments and local communities in politics, policymaking and delivery of health services. It discusses the economic (resource) reforms to explain the relevance and expansion of state interventionism along with its influence on the health sector, accountability and allocative efficiency. The author also explores the connections between neoliberal thought and privatisation in health sector, and examines the greater role of insurance-based financing and their implications for health service access and delivery. The book offers ways to address long-standing systemic and structural problems that confront the Indian healthcare system. Based on large-scale surveys and diverse empirical data on the Indian economy, this book will be of great interest to researchers, students and teachers of health economics, governance and institutional economics, political economy, sociology, public policy, regional studies and development studies. This will be useful to policymakers, health economists, social scientists, public health experts and professionals, and government and nongovernment institutions.