Job Market Paper
"Marital Sorting, Gender Bias and Education Policy"
We develop an intergenerational model with gender bias in female education and dynamic marriage market. The model features skill-based positive assortative matching (PAM) and accounts for the gender-specific skill imbalance observed in developing countries. Within a household, spouses work in the labor market, and decide about consumption, fertility and children’s education. We estimate the model using Indian data, study dynamics of the economy and show that it does a promising job of replicating the observed fertility distribution. An increase in marital sorting - as has been observed in India over time - worsens income inequality, and the gender bias in education and income. Whereas gender-neutral subsidies are ineffective, the subsidies to poorer households aimed towards encouraging female higher education reduces the gender gap in education, labor supply and income. Dynamic policy analysis reveals that it takes 2 generations to reduce the gender gap in education by one-third. We conclude that gender-targeted policy can significantly weaken taste-based gender discrimination against female higher education.
Published work
The paper analyses the migration and remittance receipt trends for the urban India based on unit level data of the NSSO 64th Round (2007-08). The paper also compares the marginal spending behaviour of the urban households receiving internal and international remittances with the non-remittance receiving households. The analysis demonstrates the important role played by the internal migration and remittance receipts, along with its international counterpart in improving living standards, poverty alleviation and thereby overall development of urban households. The marginal spending behaviour of remittance-receiving households confirms with the Engel’s law and the shift in budget share from food towards education, healthcare and consumer durables for such households proves the significant role played by remittances in human capital formation and asset accumulation.
Works in progress
"Impact of Groundwater Conservation Laws on Indian Farmers’ Profitability and Land Productivity", with Puja Parmar
The Preservation of Subsoil Water Acts, implemented by Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, shifted the planting of rice crop closer to the arrival of monsoon rains, to reduce the extraction of groundwater resulting from early planting. In this paper, we empirically investigate the impact of these laws on input choices, production, crop yield and profitability for farmers. In principle, delayed planting should allow farmers to better target inputs to growing conditions, leading to increased profitability. We model difference-in-differences and triple-difference specifications by exploiting variation in the localities where these laws were implemented, the timing of these laws and the monsoon season, and identify these effects. Preliminary findings indicate that, as expected, irrigation input is negatively correlated and revenue per hectare is positively correlated to the policy implementation. The effect of the monsoon season in presence of the policy is also positive on revenue per hectare, but contrary to expectation, it does not seem to affect the irrigation input.
“Patriarchal Norms and Marriage Market”, with Shankha Chakraborty