Decentralised governance: crafting effective democracies around the world

Sarmistha Pal is professor of financial economics at the University of Surrey. In the past, she served as a research fellow at the Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, and also a Leverhulme research fellow in the United Kingdom. Currently, she works as a research fellow at the IZA- Institute of Labour Economics in Bonn (Germany), and is also an academic member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Additionally, she serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of Development Studies. Pal's research primarily focuses on public finance, public policy, institutions, and political economy, with a particular emphasis on emerging economies. As an applied economist, she conducts empirical analysis to examine the impact of various laws, social policies, corporate practices, as well as public policies on economic outcomes for different entities such as individuals, households, firms, banks, and communities. She employs various quasi-experimental methods in her research.