Research

Dissertation Papers

In this paper, we study a multidimensional women empowerment program from India to estimate its effects on intimate partner violence faced by women. We exploit plausibly exogenous geographical variation in the implementation of the program and cohort-variation generated by eligibility rules to estimate our effects. Using a reduced form difference-in-difference design, we find evidence of lesser emotional and physical violence for women potentially exposed to the program. Overall, women face lesser intimate partner violence as well as controlling behavior on account of the empowerment intervention. We conjecture that improved anthropometric outcomes, higher literacy, and better labor market opportunities serve as potential mechanisms causing this effect.


Empirical evidence on Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in the education domain suggest increases in school participation but minimal effects on learning. In this paper, we find strong spillover effects of a CCT program on children’s academic performance, but interestingly the CCT was not conditioned on education. We study a flagship health and safe motherhood program from India and by exploiting plausible exogenous variation in exposure to the program, show positive effects on reading, writing and math test scores for elder children in the household whose parents or uncles/aunts were potentially exposed to the policy. Our results can be viewed as inter-generational effects of CCTs because the estimated benefits accrue to the future generations of the potential recipients of the transfer payments. We identify higher expenditure on private tutoring as potential short term mediating channel for the effects. We also find changes in fertility preferences of women, suggesting a longer term mediating channel applicable in a standard quantity-quality trade-off setting.


  • For the love of God? Proselytization, Religious Restrictions and Social Conflicts in India

I study the social effects of religious restrictions in the context of proselytizing activities which form an important part of some religions. To establish causality, I exploit plausibly exogenous variation from 'Freedom of Religion' legislations enacted in several Indian states during the period 1956-2006. I use administrative data on geo-coded riots to find evidence for reduced social conflicts as a result of the acts. The finding suggests that restricting forced or induced conversions in a religiously diverse country like India can have an unintended positive consequence in the form of reduced rioting. Improvement in the subjective well being of the individuals on account of the introduction of the law is the plausible channel causing this effect. I also show that these legislations do not affect individual related crimes such as murder and dacoity in any manner. The findings of the paper remain robust to the use of alternative methodology (synthetic controls).

Publications

Working Papers

  • Drowning the sorrow? Impact of a cyclonic disaster on consumption of intoxicants

  • Marketing Government Policies through Emotional Nudges: Theory and Experimental Evidence, (with Somdeep Chatterjee, Indranil Biswas and, Fuzail Ahmed)

Works in Progress

  • Intergenerational impacts of Adult Literacy on Child Education: Evidence from Saakshar Bharat Program, (with Somdeep Chatterjee)

  • Impact of pre-primary schooling on later life child educational outcomes