Blog

In this short interview, Dean talks to the IDS about what motivated him and Diane to write their book “Where India Goes: Abandoned toilets, stunted development, and the cost of caste.” While the book addresses the puzzle of widespread open...Read More..

The American Economic Association is featuring a graph from Mike and Dean's paper "Neighborhood Sanitation and Infant Mortality" as their chart of the week: see it here!...Read More..

Ashok Kotwal interviews Jean Drèze in Ideas for India....Read More..

Earlier this month, Scroll published this article calling for more support for women to help them successfully breastfeed their babies.   This support includes not only compensation and time off of work, but also assistance in order to get adequate nutrition...Read More..

Check out Nikhil’s article in EPW Engage in which he explores the government’s current pilot program (Mother’s Absolute Affection, or MAA) to improve breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding is known to help children survive, providing vital nutrition and protection from disease.  Nikhil argues...Read More..

The Hindu recently compiled its list of top ten non-fiction books of 2017, and Dean and Diane's Where India Goes made the list!  They write: Coffey and Spears have come out with a deeply researched and thoughtfully written book about...Read More..

We are excited that SARI findings on explicit prejudice, published in EPW last week, have received the following media coverage to date: Seema Chishti's front page article in the Indian Express - see here Scroll's coverage - see here NewsClick's interview...Read More..

Our new paper 'Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey' was published in Economic and Political Weekly on 6th January, 2018. The paper uses data from the newly done phone survey by r.i.c.e. called Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI). It...Read More..

Check my new article on ideas for India website. The Public Distribution System plays an important role in the lives of poor people in Jharkhand. They tend to keep their ration cards safely, go to the ration shop every month...Read More..

The hard-working folks at the Demographic and Health Surveys and the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai have the perfect new year gift for researchers in India: the new round of the India's DHS, also called NFHS - 4 (2015-16)....Read More..

Payal's op-ed on women's work was published in the Indian Express today.  She uses SARI data to explore social disapproval of women working outside the home, and how patriarchal attitudes contribute to India's low female labor participation rate. Data reported...Read More..

I was greatly saddened to hear about Uwe Reinhardt’s passing on Monday, November 13, 2017.  For those who may not be familiar with him, Uwe was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and professor of economics and public affairs...Read More..

Hat tip to r.i.c.e. board member Avinash Kishore for noticing this article in the Hindustan Times: "In Telangana’s Karimnagar, police deploy drone to stop open defecation." Two quotations from the article: "Ironically, almost all the houses in these colonies have...Read More..

You can read the whole review at this link.  Here is a quotation: "Researchers Diane Coffey and Dean Spears have written a book that is important, timely, and easy to read. It argues that caste is the biggest stumbling block...Read More..

If there is one thing you will read today, let it be this interview of Bezwada Wilson by Vidya Subrahmaniam of The Hindu Center in The Wire. Bezwada Wilson and Vidya Subrahmaniam  discuss some of rice's sanitation research, but more...Read More..

My paper with Aashish, "Health externalities of India's expansion of coal plants: Evidence from a national panel of 40,000 households," is now available open access at JEEM at this link.  Here's the abstract: Coal power generation is expanding rapidly in...Read More..