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The hidden hand of politics in education markets: how intergroup conflict & everyday choices shape school practices in Delhi, India
No full textIn fragmented and politically charged societies, what do parents seek from schools, and to whom are education providers accountable? Global education reforms increasingly promote accountability measures and expanded parental choice as mechanisms for improving school quality, positioning these policies as a means of empowering communities and reducing state inefficiencies. India's education system mirrors these global trends, yet in a country where politics permeates everyday life and influences 1.4 billion socially, religiously, and economically diverse citizens, can education ever remain separate from broader political discourses? This study examines how quasi-market reforms in the Indian capital’s education system privilege certain voices whilst marginalising others, shaping schools in ways that reflect existing social hierarchies. Drawing on tools from political science and political anthropology, it interrogates how seemingly apolitical mechanisms – such as parental voice and choice - are deeply embedded in struggles over power, identity, and exclusion. Through in-depth interviews with 230 parents and school representatives across Delhi and an analysis of 192 school disclosure documents, this research reveals how market-driven competition creates conditions of hyper-accountability, forcing schools to align with dominant group preferences rather than educational principles. Unexpectedly, the findings also reveal a form of religious nationalism that emerges from below - what this study terms 'bottom-up Hindutva' - rather than through state policy as existing scholarship suggests. This operates through parental demands for Hindu-first curricula, pressure to dismiss Muslim staff, and the careful crafting of socio-religious homogeneity in school communities. With this, the research challenges the assumption that parental agency is a neutral or depoliticised force, arguing instead that it serves as a mechanism for entrenching socio-political divisions. By questioning what and whom we consider 'political' in education research, this study calls for a critical rethinking of policies that fail to recognise how quotidian schooling decisions reproduce broader systems of power and exclusion in deeply stratified societies
Collaborative research in dementia care and support
No full textOver the past two decades, the involvement of people with dementia in applied health and care research has increasingly shifted towards more equitable, inclusive, and collaborative approaches. This work reflects on an innovative collaborative research initiative conducted in dementia care in a local health and care system in England (2015-2021). Blending Participatory Action Research and co-creation, it involved local stakeholders, including people living with dementia, their family carers, and health and care professionals, as active research partners while simultaneously driving improvements in the local dementia care system. The initiative, which was overseen by the English research ethics policy framework, was organised in three phases and employed multiple research methods. In the diagnostic phase the information need was identified as prevalent, pervasive, and often unmet among people with dementia and their families and became the focus of the improvement phase. In the improvement phase local stakeholders designed an intervention to support the information behaviour of people with dementia and their carers. The evaluation phase that followed was conducted as a process evaluation focused on one implementation arm of the designed intervention. Drawing on empirical data collected during the initiative, this work makes three contributions. First, it advances the theoretical understanding of information behaviour (a set of complex activities that are relational, emotionally charged, contextually embedded) and shows its affordance to inform health and care information policy and practice. Second, it critically examines the experience of conducting collaborative research in the complex policy landscape of dementia care, identifying the factors that shaped the initiative’s trajectory. Lastly, it reflects on the tension between the methodological framework of collaborative research and the requirements of the research ethics system that was observed throughout the co-creation initiative, offering recommendations to better align the research ethics system with the principles and practices of collaborative research
Essays on financial institutions
No full textThis dissertation consists of three empirical studies that examine how disclosure regulation and sustainability-related incentives shape the lending behavior of financial institutions. The first chapter, coauthored with Jacob Ott and Aneesh Raghunandan, examines whether banks’ net-zero proclamations (Net-Zero Banking Alliance participation) lead to shifts in lending behavior. We find that NZBA signatories reallocate lending within brown business groups, increasing loans to clean subsidiaries while cutting loans to the parent and brown subsidiaries, rather than outright divesting. These shifts are not offset by internal reallocations, and NZBA banks reinforce them by charging higher rates to brown subsidiaries than to clean ones. The second chapter, coauthored with Anya Kleymenova and Xi Li, examines the strategic incentives of banks in issuing Sustainability-Linked Loans (SLLs) around the globe. We show that multinational banks, especially dominant players in slowing credit markets, are more likely to introduce SLLs, particularly in economically important foreign markets. Taking leadership roles in SLLs, such as serving as sustainability agents, enables these banks to expand market share by strengthening relationships with existing borrowers and acquiring new clients. Moreover, leading SLLs is associated with future loan growth and higher fee income, highlighting the competitive motives behind sustainability lending. The third paper, which is solo-authored, examines how nonbank loan transparency affects substitution between nonbank and bank credit and, in turn, bank lending. Exploiting California’s Commercial Financing Disclosure Law, I show that standardized APR disclosure increased banks’ share of small business lending, reduced nonbank credit, and increased bank originations. This substitution reflects borrowers shifting away from nonbanks, due to greater sensitivity to loan pricing under standardized disclosure, as well as a contraction in nonbank credit from higher compliance costs. Banks responded by tightening standards, raising markups, and concentrating new lending in counties with higher education, higher numeracy-levels, and lower poverty
Replication Data for: Non-price energy conservation information and household energy consumption in a developing country: Evidence from an RCT
No full textData and code for replicating the results of the paper "Non-price energy conservation information and household energy consumption in a developing country: Evidence from an RCT"
Replication Data for: 'Dollar Dominance and the Transmission of Monetary Policy'
No full textThe data and programs replicate tables and figures from "Dollar Dominance and the Transmission of Monetary Policy," by McLeay and Tenreyro. Please see the README file for additional details.(2025-08-26
Napoleonic Administrative Reforms and Development in the Italian Mezzogiorno
No full textThis is the replication package for the paper "Napoleonic administrative reforms and development in the Italian Mezzogiorno" accepted for publication in The Journal of Economic History. The replication package is updated to March 2025
Corruption in Cyclone Relief and Reconstruction: Evidence from a Public Fund Distribution in Bangladesh
No full textData and code for replicating the results of the paper titled “Corruption in Cyclone Relief and Reconstruction: Evidence from a Public Fund Distribution in Bangladesh” by Shaikh Eskander, Asad Islam, and Mustafa Kamal. Link to JDS article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2025.254325
Replication Data for: Mobile internet and the quality of elections in low-income democracies
No full textHow does rising access to the internet shape elections in low-income democracies? In a controversial, overturned election in Malawi, I show how online exposure can reduce incumbency advantages and improve election administration. Leveraging geocoded polling station returns and the expansion of 3G coverage in a difference-in-differences setting, I show that ruling party vote share and election irregularities decline in areas newly exposed to the internet. This is robust to a series of specifications, including matching on pre-treatment characteristics and adjusting for polling station complexity. To examine mechanisms, I turn to interviews and focus group discussions with voters, party figures and election officials. These reveal that opposition groups used social media to campaign and organise, online platforms expanded the reach of civic education efforts, and election staff used WhatsApp to co-ordinate on polling day. The paper contributes to the literature on information technology, party strategy, and election administration in low-income settings
Replication Data for: Noisy politics, quiet technocrats: Strategic silence by central banks
No full textContains the time series of word counts and of control variables, together with the R code needed to replicate our regressions and main plots
Replication Data for News Cycles and Satisfaction with Democracy: How the Pandemic Short-Circuited Media Polarisation
No full textReplication Code for BJPS Publication: News Cycles and Satisfaction with Democracy: How the Pandemic Short-Circuited Media Polarisation. The data that support the findings of this study is available from Twitter (X) and YouGov, but restrictions apply to the availability of this data, which was used under licence for the current study and so is not publicly available. The data is, however, available from the authors upon reasonable request and with the permission of Twitter (X) and YouGov