The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India

We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous in the relationship between poverty and reservation, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India that arises from national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which the revised reservations are implemented due to the timing of state elections. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-1992, 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.affirmative action, poverty, minorities, India

Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India

This paper examines the effect of a federally-mandated public sector employment quota policy for minorities on their occupational choice. We utilize multiple logit models to estimate the effect of the policy on the choice between a high, middle, or low-skill public sector occupation during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings are, first, the policy has a significant effect on the choice of occupation for both groups. The policy increases the probability of the scheduled caste group choosing high-skill occupations and decreases the probability of choosing middle-skill occupations. In contrast, the policy decreases the probability of the scheduled tribe group choosing high-skill occupations and increases their probability of choosing low-skill occupations. Second, the influence of the policy is interrelated with an individual's years of schooling. Third, we find evidence of employment quota externalities in that a policy targeted at one group affects the occupational choice of the other group. Overall, the results suggest that federally-mandated employment quotas do change occupational choice for the target disadvantaged groups and contribute to their improved socio-economic standing.Occupational choice, Skill, Caste, India

Consumption and Social Identity: Evidence from India

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. The classification of such items was done by eliciting responses to a survey in India. We match the results of our survey with nationally representative micro data on household consumption expenditures. We find that disadvantaged caste groups such as Other Backward Castes spend nine percent more on visible consumption than Brahmin and High Caste groups while social groups such as Muslims spend eleven percent less, after controlling for differences in permanent income and demographic composition of households. These differences are significant and robust. Additionally, we find that these differences can be partly explained as a result of the status signaling nature of such consumption items.households, consumption, India

A Distributional Analysis of the Public-Private Wage Differential in India

We investigate the public-private wage differential in India using nationally representative micro data. While the existing literature focuses on average wage differential, we study the differences in the wage distributions. The raw wage differential between public and private sector is positive across the entire distribution for both genders irrespective of area of residence. A quantile regression based decomposition analysis reveals that the differences in observed characteristics (covariate effect) account for only a small part of the wage differential at lower quantiles, but a larger part at higher quantiles. At the very top of the distribution, covariate effect account for a majority of the observed wage differential.quantile regression, public-private wage differential, India

Do Employment Quotas Explain the Occupational Choices of Disadvantaged Minorities in India?

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.skill, affirmative action, employment quota, occupational choice, caste, India

Do School Lunch Subsidies Change the Dietary Patterns of Children from Low- Income Households?

This article examines the effects of school lunch subsidies provided through the meanstested component of the National School Lunch Program on the dietary patterns of children age 10- to 13 yr in the USA. Analyzing data on 5,140 public school children in 5th grade during spring 2004, we find significant increases in the number of servings of fruit, green salad, carrots, other vegetables, and 100 percent fruit juice consumed in one 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.National School Lunch Program, Dietary Patterns, Means-Tested Subsidies

Education policies and practices: What have we learnt and the road ahead for Bihar

This paper assesses the status of education, both quantity and quality, in Bihar in both absolute terms and relative to other states in India. It then performs a regression exercise using a panel data of Indian states to identify the correlates of educational outcomes. It also surveys the broader literature on education policies which provides a perspective on the current policies in the field of education in Bihar. Finally, it makes a case for several policy initiatives that should be accorded priority by the policymakers in Bihar

The Role of Constitutions on Poverty: A Cross-National Investigation

In this paper we use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 201 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of constitutional language of the economic and social rights matter? Constitutional provisions can be framed either more weakly as directive principles or more strongly as enforceable law. We find three important results. First, we do not find an association between constitutional rights generally framed and poverty. Second, we do not find an association 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, we find evidence that this result is causal. Our results survive a variety of robustness checks. The policy implication is that constitutional provisions framed as enforceable law provide effective meta-rules with incentives for policymakers to initiate, fund, monitor and enforce poverty reduction policies

Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India

This paper examines the relationship between elected minority representatives, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 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 groups in state legislative assemblies mandated by the Constitution of India. Using data from state and village level surveys on fifteen major Indian states, we find that Schedule Tribe representatives increase the frequency of visits by both doctors and mobile medical units. On the other hand, Scheduled Caste 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, and relative population shares

Plasmid-Encoded Multidrug Resistance of Salmonella typhi and some Enteric Bacteria in and around Kolkata, India: A Preliminary Study

The present study investigates the occurrence of R-plasmid in Salmonella typhi isolates from enteric fever cases in and around Kolkata (1991-2001), India following in vitro conjugation experiments, isolation of plasmid DNAs and agarose gel electrophoretic analysis. The multidrug resistant (MDR) S. typhi strains contained a transferable plasmid conferring resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, cotrimoxazole and tetracycline. The plasmid encoding ACCoT-resistance of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Proteus vulgaris were conjugative and co-migrated with the plasmid of MDR S. typhi isolates. The antibiotic sensitive S. typhi isolates did not contain any plasmid. Thus the findings of the present study confirmed the instability of the R-plasmid in S. typhi, and that the antibiotic sensitive S. typhi strains acquired the R-plasmid from other enteric bacteria such as E. coli, K. pneumoniae and P.vulgaris to undergo a suitable adaptation for survival in the changing antibiotic environment