VIJAYENDRA RAO is a Lead Economist in the
Development Research Group of the World Bank and combines his training in
economics with an interest in anthropology and social theory. He calls his
approach to research, which blends economic and ethnographic methods to study
the social and cultural dimensions of poverty, "participatory
econometrics". He has published papers on a wide variety of topics using
this interdisciplinary approach including dowries, domestic violence, sex worker
behavior, festivals, and the political economy of village democracy. More
recently he has been thinking about how incorporating a "cultural
lens" into development theory and practice can help address problems of
persistent poverty and has co-edited a volume, Culture and Public Action,
on the topic published by Stanford University Press. An important theme in this
effort is to evaluate and improve the quality of community based development,
and to understand the process of democratic decentralization. Dr. Rao holds a
PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, was a post-doctoral fellow
at the University of Chicago, and taught at the University of Michigan and
Williams College before joining the World Bank. He serves on the editorial
boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change and Journal of
Development Studies.
The author's works below are drawn from the World
Bank's institutional archives. You can also download other documents by this
author. |
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