Articles by Devesh Kapur

Reforms in four areas should be the priority if the current government’s agenda of doubling farmer incomes is to be accomplished in the coming years. First, the focus of agricultural policies must shift from production per se to farmers’ livelihoods. Second, policies to improve the allocation and efficiency of land and water are essential if these critical resources are to be conserved. Third, reforms are needed to help farmers cope with the growing risks of weather and price volatility. Fourth, agricultural markets must be opened to greater competition and provided with better infrastructure if farmers are to realise better returns for produce, without trading off the low-income consumers’ nutritional security.

In the debates surrounding the consequences of India's shift from a state-led to a market-oriented economic model, the issue of caste and caste practices, particularly for dalits, has been an empirical weak link. We draw on a unique survey designed and implemented by members of the dalit community to capture social practices and conditions important to them which are not featured in the usual household surveys. This survey asked all dalit households in two blocks of Uttar Pradesh (Azamgarh and Bulandshahar districts) both about conditions currently and in 1990. The survey results suggest that placing exclusive focus on measures of material well-being, such as consumption expenditure and its inequality, is misplaced as it misses important changes in socially structured inequalities and hence in individuals' functioning.

Continuing the debate on direct cash transfers, the authors of the article "The Case for Direct Cash Transfers to the Poor" (12 April 2008) respond to Mihir Shah's criticism (23 August 2008). The six points of contestation by Mihir Shah - including those on the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - are refuted. The argument in essence is that seeing the problems with anti-poverty programmes as faulty design and limited availability of resources does not recognise the culture of immunity in public administration and the weak capabilities of local governments.

A consensus has developed that the International Monetary Fund is not fulfilling its role prompting multiple proposals for reform. However, the focus on reform should be complemented with an exploration of alternatives outside the IMF, which hold the potential to give developing countries greater bargaining leverage with the Fund, and by increasing competition so as to spur the institution to better performance. This paper focuses on the insurance role of the Fund and argues that developing countries are turning to alternative insurance mechanisms - from a higher level of reserves, to regional co-insurance facilities, to remittances - as a counter-cyclical source of foreign exchange. The de facto exit of the IMF's clientele driven by the high political costs associated with Fund borrowing, now poses unprecedented challenges, in particular pressures on the Fund's income. In order to maintain its role as an insurance mechanism, the IMF needs to undergo a rapid restructuring and significantly cut its administrative budget, with the budget savings used to lower the interest rates charged to borrowers.