IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nca/ncaerj/v17y2021i2021-1p31-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Indian Health Policy in Light of COVID-19: The Puzzle of State Capacity and Institutional Design

Author

Listed:
  • Shah, Ajay

Abstract

The Coronavirus pandemic has been a severe stress test for the Indian health system. In this paper, we review India’s experience with COVID-19 in the first half of 2020. An array of initiatives are required in public health and health care in response to this experience. In testing and health care, the substantial role of the private sector needs to be recognized and integrated into thinking about health policy. There is a need to reform government organizations that wield coercive power or spend public money so as to refocus them on addressing market failures and improving state capacity. There is considerable knowledge in the field of building state capacity in India that can help in this task.

Suggested Citation

  • Shah, Ajay, 2021. "Indian Health Policy in Light of COVID-19: The Puzzle of State Capacity and Institutional Design," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 17(1), pages 31-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:nca:ncaerj:v:17:y:2021:i:2021-1:p:31-75
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ncaer.org/publication/india-policy-forum-2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Minu Philip & Debraj Ray & S. Subramanian, 2021. "Decoding India's Low Covid-19 Case Fatality Rate," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 27-51, January.
    2. Patnaik, Ila & Roy, Shubho & Shah, Ajay, 2018. "The rise of government-funded health insurance in India," Working Papers 18/231, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    3. Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2004. "Solutions When the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 191-212, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Husein Abdul-Hamid & Sarah Mintz & Namrata Saraogi, 2017. "From Compliance to Learning," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26331, December.
    2. Andrews, Matt & Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2013. "Escaping Capability Traps Through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 234-244.
    3. Simplice Asongu, 2014. "The Questionable Economics of Development Assistance in Africa: Hot-Fresh Evidence, 1996–2010," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 455-480, December.
    4. Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock & Matt Andrews, 2013. "Looking Like a State: Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 1-18, January.
    5. Ghazala Mansuri, 2004. "Community-Based and -Driven Development: A Critical Review," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 1-39.
    6. Brendan Whitty & Jessica Sklair & Paul Robert Gilbert & Emma Mawdsley & Jo‐Anna Russon & Olivia Taylor, 2023. "Outsourcing the Business of Development: The Rise of For‐profit Consultancies in the UK Aid Sector," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 892-917, July.
    7. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Andrews, Matthew, 2008. "Are One-Best-Way Models of Effective Government Suitable for Developing Countries?," Working Paper Series rwp08-014, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    9. Andrew McNee, 2012. "Illuminating the local: can non-formal institutions be complementary to health system development in Papua New Guinea?," Development Policy Centre Discussion Papers 1215, Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    10. Yuen Yuen Ang, 2017. "Beyond Weber: Conceptualizing an alternative ideal type of bureaucracy in developing contexts," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(3), pages 282-298, September.
    11. Lant Pritchett & Salimah Samji & Jeffrey S. Hammer, 2012. "It's All about MeE: Using Structured Experiential Learning ('e') to Crawl the Design Space," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Hakiman, Kamran & Sheely, Ryan, 2023. "Unlocking the Potential of Participatory Planning: How Flexible and Adaptive Governance Interventions Can Work in Practice," OSF Preprints kucjs, Center for Open Science.
    13. Matt Andrews, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," CID Working Papers 281, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    14. Adu-Gyamfi Poku & Regina Birner & Saurabh Gupta, 2018. "Why do maize farmers in Ghana have a limited choice of improved seed varieties? An assessment of the governance challenges in seed supply," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(1), pages 27-46, February.
    15. Elinor Ostrom, 2014. "Do institutions for collective action evolve?," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 3-30, April.
    16. Andrews, Matt, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," Working Paper Series rwp14-022, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Alatas, Vivi & Pritchett, Lant & Wetterberg, Anna, 2003. "Voice lessons : local government organizations, social organizations, and the quality of local governance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2981, The World Bank.
    18. Kelkar, Vijay & Shah, Ajay, 2011. "Indian social democracy: The resource perspective," Working Papers 11/82, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    19. Österreichische Forschungsstiftung für Internationale Entwicklung (ÖFSE) (ed.), 2009. "Österreichische Entwicklungspolitik 2008. Staat und Entwicklung," Austrian Development Policy Report, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE), number 268189.
    20. Birner, Regina & Linacre, Nicholas A., 2008. "Designing Regional Systems of Biotechnology Regulation A Transaction Cost Approach to Regulatory Governance," 2007 Second International Conference, August 20-22, 2007, Accra, Ghana 52218, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    21. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack, 2018. "World Bank Policy Lending and the Quality of Public-Sector Governance," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 29-54.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    India; COVID-19; Health Policy; Public Health; Health Care; Market Failure; State Capacity; Regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nca:ncaerj:v:17:y:2021:i:2021-1:p:31-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: B Ramesh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ncaerin.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.