• Holman, Mirya, Lakshmi Iyer and Christina Wolbrecht. “Governing the Gilded Age City: Local Institution Building in the United States.” March 2025 (revised and resubmitted).

• Iyer, Lakshmi, and Coleson Weir. “The Colonial Legacy in India: How Persistent are the Effects of Historical Institutions?” March 2025 (revised and resubmitted).

• Lancker, Kira, Lakshmi Iyer, Faraz Usmani, James Allen IV, Molly J. Doruska, Samba Mbaye, Aminata Sylla, Bineta Sow, Jason R. Rohr and Christopher B. Barrett. “Do private incentives crowd out public good donations? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment.” March 2025 (under review).

• Iyer, Lakshmi, Paloma Lopez de mesa Moyano, and Vivek Moorthy. “Religion and Demography: Papal Influences on Fertility.” February 2025 (under review).

• Chaudhary, Latika, and Lakshmi Iyer. “The Importance of Being Local? Administrative Decentralization and Human Development.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 17053, June 2024 (revisions requested).
  • Ideas for India blog

• Bhalotra, Sonia, Irma Clots-Figueras, and Lakshmi Iyer. “Ethnic Conflict: The Role of Ethnic Representation.” WIDER Working Paper 2023/84, June 2023.

• “Gender Quotas and Crimes Against Women: Is There an Intensive Margin Effect?” with Margaret Triyana (email me for a draft).

Resting Papers

• “Poverty and Crime: Evidence from Rainfall and Trade Shocks in India.” (with Petia Topalova), updated August 2014. PDF
  • Media: Slate, Chris Blattman’s blog.
• “Redrawing the Lines: Did Political Incumbents Influence Electoral Redistricting in the World’s Largest Democracy?” (with Maya Reddy), December 2013. PDF
  • Media: The Hindu.