Published Papers
PUBLICATIONS IN REFEREED JOURNALS
22. All Pain and No Gain: When Goal Setting Leads to More Effort but No Gains in Test Scores (with Asadul Islam, Sungoh Kwon, Eema Masood, Shwetlena Sabarwal, and Deepak Saraswat), forthcoming in Economics of Education Review
Replication Files
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We conduct an at-scale randomized control trial among 18,000 secondary students in Zanzibar (Tanzania) to examine the effects of personal best goal-setting on student outcomes. We also test the impact of combining goal setting with non-financial rewards conditional on students meeting the goals they set. We find that goal-setting has a significant positive impact on student time use, study effort, and self-discipline. However, we do not find any significant impacts on test scores. This is partially because nearly two-thirds of students do not set realistic goals. We find that effects on time use, study effort, and discipline are weaker when goal-setting is combined with non-financial rewards. This suggests that tying goal-setting to extrinsic incentives could weaken its impact. We also find stronger impacts for female students, and from students coming from weaker socio-economic backgrounds. These results demonstrate that goal-setting can have positive impacts on student outcomes, especially for the relatively disadvantaged. However, for maximizing impacts goal-setting may need to be combined with guidance on setting realistic goals and extrinsic rewards tied to goals may need to be avoided.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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21. Sexual Harassment in Public Spaces and Policing: Experimental Evidence from Urban India (with Sofia Amaral, Girija Borker, Nathan Fiala, Anjani Kumar, and Maria Micaela Sviatschi), forthcoming in The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Replication Files
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We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an innovative police patrol program on sexual harassment in public spaces in Hyderabad, India. In collaboration with the Hyderabad City Police, we randomize exposure to police patrols and the visibility of officers by deploying both uniformed and undercover officers across 350 hotspots. We implement a novel, high-frequency observation exercise to measure sexual harassment at these hotspots, where enumerators recorded all observed instances of sexual harassment and women’s responses in real time. We find that although police patrols had no impact on overall street harassment, uniformed police patrols reduced severe forms of harassment (forceful touching, intimidation) by 27 percent and reduced the likelihood of women leaving the hotspot due to sexual harassment. We uncover the underlying mechanisms, finding that both police visibility and officers' attitudes toward sexual harassment are key to understanding its incidence. While the performance of undercover officers was similar to that of uniformed officers, harassment of any type did not decrease when undercover officers were on patrol, suggesting that police officer visibility is critical in deterring perpetrators. Additionally, using lab experiments, we find that, on average, police officers were more tolerant of mild street harassment and less inclined to punish offenders in such cases. Correspondingly, in hotspots patrolled by uniformed officers, we observe a decline in all types of harassment only when assigned officers held stronger personal views on harassment.
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20. Can Destigmatizing Mental Health Increase Willingness to Seek Help? Experimental Evidence from Nepal (with Lindsey Lacey, Nirajana Mishra, Priya Mukherjee, Nikhilesh Prakash, Nishith Prakash, Diane Quinn, Shwetlena Sabarwal, and Deepak Saraswat), forthcoming in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
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We conducted a randomized control trial to study the impact of two information messages aimed at reducing the stigma associated with mental illness on the willingness to seek mental healthcare among adults in Nepal. The first intervention shares information about the prevalence of mental health issues and the efficacy of treatment. The second intervention shares information about the mental health struggles of a Nepali celebrity and how he benefited from treatment. We find three results. First, compared to a no-information control group, both interventions increase participants’ stated willingness to seek mental health treatment. This effect is driven by participants with high personal and anticipated stigma, less severe symptoms of depression and anxiety, and who hold strong beliefs about conformity to masculinity. Second, the impact on participants’ stated willingness to seek mental health treatment mirrors their willingness to pay for counseling. Third, participants are, on average, more likely to report willingness to seek help when the enumerator is female.
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19. When Criminality Begets Crime: Role of Elected Politician in India (with Soham Sahoo, Deepak Saraswat, and Reetika Sindhi), forthcoming in Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
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This paper estimates the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians and their nature of criminality on crime in India. We exploit the quasi-random variation in the outcome of close elections between candidates with and without criminal accusations to instrument the share of constituencies in the district won by criminally accused leaders. We find that a standard deviation increase in the share of criminally accused leaders in institutionally weaker states leads to a 4.3 percent increase in crime in districts, including crimes against women. The effect is more pronounced when the leaders are accused of serious crimes, indicating that seriously accused leaders have a detrimental impact on society.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
18. Saving for Dowry: Evidence from Rural India (with S Anukriti, and Sungoh Kwon), in Journal of Development Economics , Vol. 154, January 2022
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The ancient custom of dowry, i.e., bride-to-groom marriage payments, remains ubiquitous in many contemporary societies. Using data from 1986–2007, this paper examines whether dowry impacts intertemporal resource allocation and other household decisions in rural India. Utilizing variation in firstborn gender and dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of higher dowry payments at the time of a daughter’s marriage leads parents to save more in advance. The higher savings are primarily financed through increased paternal labor supply. This implies that people are farsighted; they work and save more today with payoff in the distant future.
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17. Science Education and Labor Market Outcomes in a Developing Economy (with Tarun Jain, Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, and Raghav Rakesh), Economic Inquiry, Vol. 60 (2), October, 2021
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We examine the association between studying science in higher secondary school and labor market earnings in India. Studying science in high school is associated with 22% greater earnings than studying business or humanities. Earnings for science students are further enhanced with some fluency in English. Science education is also associated with more years of education, completing a professional degree, returns to entrepreneurship and working in public sector positions. Primary survey of high school students shows no discernible differences in behavioral characteristics of science students compared to others.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
16. The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India, in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization , Vol. 180, December 2020, pp. 494-509
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India has the world's biggest and arguably most aggressive employment-based affirmative action policy for minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of a federally mandated employment quota policy to examine its causal impact on the economic lives of the two distinct minority groups (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes). My main finding is that a 1-percentage point increase in the employment quota for Scheduled Castes increases the likelihood of obtaining a salaried job by 0.6-percentage points for male Scheduled Caste members residing in the rural sector. The employment quota policy has no impact for Scheduled Tribes. Contrary to popular notion, I do not find evidence of "elite-capture" among the Scheduled Castes -- the impact is concentrated among members who have completed less than secondary education. Consistent with the employment results, I find that the policy improved the well-being of Scheduled Castes members in rural areas who have completed less than secondary education. Finally, the impact of the employment quota policy varies by state characteristics.
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15. Do Criminally Accused Politicians Affect Economic Outcomes? Evidence from India (with Yogesh Uppal, and Marc Rockmore), in Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 141, November 2019
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We study the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians to state legislative assemblies in India on the subsequent economic performance of their constituencies. Using data on the criminal background of candidates running in state assembly elections for the period 2004–2008 period and a constituency-level measure of economic activity proxied by the intensity of night-time lights, we employ a regression discontinuity design and find that narrowly electing a criminally accused politician lowers the growth of the intensity of night-time lights by about 24 percentage points (approximately 2.4 percentage point lower GDP growth). The negative impact is more pronounced for legislators who are accused of serious or financial charges, have multiple accusations, are from the non-ruling party, have less than a college education, or have below median wealth. Overall, we find that the effect appears to be concentrated in the less developed and the more corrupt states. Similar findings emerge for the provision of public goods using data on India’s major rural roads construction program.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
14. Girls for Sale? Child Sex Ratio and Girls Tracking in India (with Krishna C. Vadlamannati), in Feminist Economics, Vol. 25 (4), October 2019, pp. 267 - 308
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Illegal trafficking of girls results from their disadvantageous position in society, often reflected by preference for sons and neglect of daughters. India has both higher levels of illegal trafficking of girls and abnormal child sex ratios in favor of boys. This paper examines if the skewed sex ratio in India is associated with trafficking of girls. Using panel data from twenty-nine Indian states from 1980 to 2011, the study finds that a 100-unit increase in the child sex ratio is associated with a 0.635 percent increase in girl trafficking. Further, the association is heterogeneous by women’s empowerment, crime against women, and party rule in the state, and the association between the child sex ratio and trafficking of girls is stronger and larger in magnitude in states with greater women’s empowerment. Overall, it appears the results are driven both by greater reporting and a greater incidence of illegal girl trafficking.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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13. The Role of Constitutions on Poverty: A Cross-National Investigation (with Lanse Minkler), in Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 45 (3), August 2017, pp. 563 - 581
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We construct and use a new historical data set on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 195 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two im- portant questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty, measured as headcount income and health outcomes? Second, does the strength of constitutional language of the economic and social rights matter? Constitutional provi- sions can be framed either more weakly as directive principles or more strongly as en- forceable law. Our results suggest three findings. First, we do not find an association be- tween constitutional rights generally framed and poverty. Second, we do not find an as- sociation between economic and social rights framed as directive principles and poverty. Third, we do find a strong negative association between economic and social rights framed as enforceable law and poverty when we use legal origins as our IV. These results persist for indices of constitutional rights and also when we restrict the sample to non-OECD countries. The policy implication is that constitutional provisions framed as enforceable law provide effective meta-rules with incentives for policymakers to initiate, fund, mon- itor and enforce poverty reduction policies.
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12. Effect of Political Decentralization and Female Leadership on Institutional Births and Child Mortality in Rural Bihar, India (with Santosh Kumar), in Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 185, July 2017, pp. 171 - 178
Replication Files
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In this paper, we investigate the impacts of political decentralization and women reservation in local governance on institutional births and child mortality in the state of Bihar, India. Using the difference-indifferences methodology, we find a significant positive association between political decentralization and institutional births. We also find that the increased participation of women at local governance led to an increased survival rate of children belonging to richer households. We argue that our results are consistent with female leaders having policy preference for women and child well-being.
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11. Cycling to School: Increasing Secondary School Enrollment for Girls in India (with Karthik Muralidharan), in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 9 (3), July 2017, pp. 321 - 350
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We study the impact of an innovative program in the Indian state of Bihar that aimed to reduce the gender gap in secondary school enrollment by providing girls who continued to secondary school with a bicycle that would improve access to school. Using data from a large representative household survey, we employ a triple difference approach (using boys and the neighboring state of Jharkhand as comparison groups) and find that being in a cohort that was exposed to the Cycle program increased girls’ age-appropriate enrollment in secondary school by 32 percent and reduced the corresponding gender gap by 40 percent. We also find an 18 percent increase in the number of girls who appear for the high-stakes secondary school certificate exam, and a 12 percent increase in the number of girls who pass it. Parametric and non-parametric decompositions of the triple-difference estimate as a function of distance to the nearest secondary school show that the increases in enrollment mostly took place in villages that were further away from a secondary school, suggesting that the mechanism of impact was the reduction in the time and safety cost of school attendance made possible by the bicycle. We also find that the Cycle program was much more cost effective at increasing girls’ secondary school enrollment than comparable conditional cash transfer programs in South Asia.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
10. Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India (with Elizabeth Kaletski), in Review of Development Economics, Vol. 21 (1), 2017, pp. 67 - 102
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This paper examines the relationship between elected minority representatives, i.e. Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) and health worker visits in rural India. We estimate the effect of minority representation on the frequency of visits to villages by health workers by exploiting the state variation in the share of seats reserved for the two minority groups in state legislative assemblies mandated by the Constitution of India. Using data from state and village level surveys on 15 major Indian states, we find that ST representatives increase the frequency of visits by both doctors and mobile medical units. In contrast, SC representatives have a tendency to decrease the frequency of visits by mobile medical units. Potential explanations for the differential impact of SC and ST representatives are also explored, including geographic isolation, support for the Congress Party, a shift in power, and relative population shares.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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9. Does Constitutionalizing Economic and Social Rights Promote their Fulfillment? (with Elizabeth Kaletski, Lanse Minkler, and Susan Randolph), in Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 15 (4), 2016, pp. 433 - 453
Replication Files
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This paper explores whether constitutional provisions promote fulfillment of economic and social rights. This is accomplished by combining unique data on both enforceable law and directive principles with the Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment Index (SERF Index), which measures government fulfillment of such rights. The results indicate that there is a positive and significant correlation between enforceable law provisions and the right to health and education components of the SERF Index. The strongest relationship appears to be for the right to health component where the inclusion of an enforceable law provision on economic and social rights in the constitution is correlated with an increase in the health component by 9.55, or 13.0%, on average. These results support the idea that constitutional provisions may be one way to improve economic and social rights outcomes.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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8. Does Political Reservation for Minorities Affect Child Labor? Evidence from India (with Elizabeth Kaletski), in World Development, Vol. 87, November 2016, pp. 50 - 69
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This paper examines the impact of state-level political reservation for two minority groups–Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes–on the incidence of child labor in India. We estimate the effect of political reservation on the incidence of child labor by exploiting the state variation in the share of seats reserved for the two minority groups in state legislative assemblies mandated by the Constitution of India. Using data from state and household-level surveys on fifteen major Indian states, we find that at the household level, Schedule Tribe reservation decreases the incidence of child labor, while Scheduled Caste reservation increases the total number of children working. We examine these impacts on the general as well as the disadvantaged group population independently, and across the gender of children. We also explore potential explanations for the differential impact of SC and ST political reservation, including geographic isolation, caste fragmentation, support for the Congress Party, and decentralization of power. Our results survive a variety of robustness checks.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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7. A Distributional Analysis of Public–Private Wage Differential in India (with Mehtabul Azam), in LABOUR: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations, Vol. 29 (4), December 2015, pp. 394 - 414
Replication Files
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In this paper, we examine public–private wage differential among men in India across the entire wage distribution. We find that the raw wage gap between public and private sector is positive across the entire wage distribution in both urban and rural areas. A quantile regression-based decomposition reveals that that the public sector workers enjoy a positive wage premium across the entire wage distribution in both urban and rural areas, although the magnitude of wage premium is smaller at the top quantiles.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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6. The Returns to English-Language Skills in India (with Mehtabul Azam, and Aimee Chin), in Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 61 (2), January 2013, pp. 335 - 367
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This paper investigates the economic impact of English proficiency on wages in India, using data from the 2005 India Human Development Survey. The study finds that men who speak fluent English earn 34% more in hourly wages, while those with some English skills earn 13% more than non-English speakers. The returns are particularly high for more educated and experienced workers, suggesting significant economic benefits of English proficiency in India. The findings highlight the importance of English skills for individual economic advancement and inform policy decisions on language education investments.
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5. Consumption and social identity: Evidence from India (with Melanie Khamis, and Zahra Siddique), in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 83 (3), August 2012, pp. 353 - 371
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We examine spending on consumption items which have signaling value in social interactions across groups with distinctive social identities in India, where social identities are defined by caste and religious affiliations. Using nationally representative micro data on household consumption expenditures, we find that disadvantaged caste groups such as Other Backward Castes spend 8 percent more on visible consumption than Brahmin and High Caste groups while social groups such as Muslims spend 14 percent less, after controlling for differences in permanent income, household assets and household demographic composition. The differences across social groups are significant and robust and these differences persist within different sub populations. We find that the higher spending of OBC households on visible consumption is diverted from education spending, while Muslim households divert spending from visible consumption and education towards greater food spending. Additionally, we find that these consumption patterns can be partly explained as a result of the status signaling nature of the consumption items. We also discuss alternative sources of differences in consumption patterns across groups which stem from religious observance.
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4. Do School Lunch Subsidies Change the Dietary Patterns of Children from Low-Income Households? (with Larry Howard), in Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol. 30 (3), July 2012, pp. 362 - 381
Replication Files
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This article examines the effects of school lunch subsidies provided through the means-tested component of the National School Lunch Program on the dietary patterns of children aged 10–13 years in the United States. Analyzing data on 5,140 public school children in fifth grade during spring 2004, we find significant increases in the number of servings of fruit, green salad, carrots, other vegetables, and 100% fruit juice consumed in 1 week for subsidized children relative to unsubsidized children. The effects on fruit and other vegetable consumption are stronger among the children receiving a full subsidy, as opposed to only a partial subsidy, and indicate the size of the subsidy is an important policy lever underlying the program’s effectiveness. Overall, the findings provide the strongest empirical evidence to date that the means-tested school lunch subsidies increase children’s consumption over a time period longer than one school day.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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3. Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India (with Larry Howard), in International Review of Applied Economics, Vol. 26 (4), July 2012, pp. 489 - 513
Replication Files
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This article investigates the effects of a large-scale public sector employment quota policy for disadvantaged minorities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) in India on their occupational choices, as defined by skill level, during the 1980s and 1990s. We find that, first, the employment quota policy significantly affects the occupational structure of both disadvantaged minority populations. In response to the employment quotas, individuals belonging to the Scheduled Caste group are more likely to choose high-skill occupations and less likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations, while individuals belonging to the Scheduled Tribe group are less likely to choose high-skill occupations and more likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations. Second, the impact of the employment quotas is significantly related with an individual’s years of schooling. Overall, the results indicate that the employment quota policy changes the occupational choices of individuals within the targeted populations and contributes to their improved socio-economic standing.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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2. The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India (with Aimee Chin), in Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 96 (2), November 2011, pp. 265 - 277
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We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India generated by national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which revised reservations are implemented. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960–2000, we find that increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes significantly reduces poverty while increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes has no impact on poverty. Political reservation for Scheduled Tribes has a greater effect on rural poverty than urban poverty, and appears to benefit people near the poverty line as well as those far below it.
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1. Skill Mapping and Skill Development for Employability: The Case of Cuttack (with Anoop Satpathy, and Jimuta Mishra), in Indian Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 45 (4), 2002
Replication Files
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The impact of globalization on society and economy is encapsulated in its effects on the labor market. It has accentuated the skill components in labor. In order to evaluate the impact of globalization the search for local specificities is imperative. There is a need for an analysis of the labor market at a disaggregated level with a focus on; (a) the skill training infrastructure available in each locality, and its effectiveness in nurturing employability, and (b) the importance of partnership between training institutions with other social actors. In this regard the paper of industries and the means of acquisition of skills is also given in order to gauge the growth pattern and the likely demand for skills in the district.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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OTHER REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
5. Educator Knowledge of Early Childhood Development: Evidence from Eastern Nepal (with Lindsey Buck, Nathan Fiala, Shwetlena Sabarwal, Deepak Saraswat, and Deepika Shrestha), in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9381/2020
Replication Files
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Early childhood is a crucial period for the cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and language development of children. Of the 200 million children who do not reach their developmental potential worldwide, 66 percent live in South Asia. This paper explores gaps in knowledge among educators in Eastern Nepal about the importance of early childhood. The results of a survey headteachers and teachers show that teachers often do not place enough weight on the importance of behaviors that contribute to the growth and development of children in early childhood. There are also large gaps in teachers’ understanding and practice of classroom accommodations for children with disabilities. The paper illustrates that educators, who play a large role in children’s lives during early years, may be uninformed about the importance of early childhood development. The paper provides policy recommendations that can help policymakers target areas that lack understanding and improve early childhood development education and understanding among educators.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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4. Affirmative Action Policy in Developing Countries: Lessons Learned and Way Forward (with Elizabeth Kaletski), in UNU-WIDER Working Paper 52/2016
Replication Files
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There are several countries who have responded to concerns regarding historically disadvantaged groups, particularly ethnic and racial minorities and women, with not only anti-discrimination legislation, but also affirmative action policies. Although these policies areseemingly well intentioned, there continues to be little consensus about their actual impact. Thispaper seeks to examine the current state of the literature on one specific affirmative actionpolicy, political reservation in India.The Indian constitution mandates seats be reserved atvarious levels of government for political representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribesand women. This paper discusses the existing inequalities across these groups, along with thebasic theory behind political reservation in fixing these inequalities, while also recognizing thattheory provides many channels through which affirmative action policy can impact a variety ofoutcomes. Thus we turn to the vast empirical literature on the topic to shed light on what can belearned from the Indian context and how future policy can be reformed and shaped based onthese experiences.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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3. Bihar's Alcohol Ban: Good Intentions, Impractical Policy (with Sanjeev Kumar), in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 51 (1), January 2016
Replication Files
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Nitish Kumar’s decision to ban alcohol in Bihar may not address the problem of domestic violence, as he expects it will. The state will also lose Rs 4,000 crore in tax revenue. Moreover, bans have always led to black market sales, and then greater expenditure to enforce the ban. The answer to growing alcoholism and its related social malaise lies in higher taxes and limitations on access to alcohol.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
2. The Impact of Change in Primary Completion Rate on Learning Outcomes in India (with Bhanu Gupta), in UNESCO Global Monitoring Report, 2015
Replication Files
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Using a nationally representative rural household data on education in India from 2008-2012, we investigate if the recent increase in primary completion rate had affected learning outcomes adversely. In particular we use Math and English learning level as a proxy for learning outcomes. Using 2012-2010 difference in primary completion rate we find that it is negatively correlated with Math. However the negative relationship is entirely driven by children-in-school. We do not find similar correlation for English. We further plot the trends in primary completion rate, Math and English level for all major states in India by gender.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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1. Impact of the Village Health and Sanitation Committee on Health-Care Utilization: Findings from Propensity Score Matching in India (with Santosh Kumar), in The Lancet, Vol. 381 (2), 17 - 19 June 2013, pp. S77
Replication Files
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In order to improve the availability, accessibility, quality, and use of the public health system, the Government of India has engaged the community and local population in planning and monitoring health service delivery in rural areas. The Indian Government instituted the Village H ealth and Sanitation Committee (VHSC), which serves as a forum for village planning and monitoring. This study evaluates the impact of these village-level bodies on utilisation of health services in Indian villages.
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Policy Writings and Interviews
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