06.15.2022

Almost two months after I joined the property tax project, I finally arrived in Chennai for my first field visit! I was working out of the J-PAL office for the next ten days, and it was great to finally meet the other members of our team in person after several weeks of zoom meetings.

Thanks to the MOU signed between J-PAL and the Government of Tamil Nadu, there is a very systematic process for getting approval and funding for research projects being implemented in conjunction with the Government. During my visit, the research team was slated to present the project proposal to our government counterparts in the Greater Chennai Corporation and the Department of Municipal Administration to get preliminary approval. We had several very constructive meetings and got great feedback on how to refine the study design and timelines. I spent many car journeys editing our slides to incorporate the feedback offered during our previous meeting as we rushed to our next one! This was my first experience making presentations to government officials. Listening to their views on our study design and was a great lesson in how to develop research that generates valuable policy insights in addition to contributing to the academic literature. Without these meetings it would have been difficult to get a full picture of the political and resource constraints under which tax administration takes place, and I’m grateful that I got to be in the room for these conversations!