Research

“Long-Run Effects of Land Redistribution: Evidence from India,” Working Paper (Job Market Paper: Latest Version)

How does inequality in land ownership impact long-run economic development? I study the effects of a land redistribution program implemented in north India in the 1820s. I exploit intra-state variation provided by a colonial policy that led to the recognition of property rights among village communities across 72% of the state. In the remaining area, a smaller number of pre-colonial revenue farmers were recognized as landowners. Using present day village-level microdata, I estimate treatment effects by means of a spatial RD design. Results suggest that redistribution led to an overall increase in durable asset ownership, nonfarm employment and years of schooling, and that positive effects were also realized by descendants of those lower caste households who did not receive land. Using data from a field survey, I find that across treated areas, such households are less likely to comply with restrictive socio-economic norms, which may be a channel of persistence. These findings are consistent with a dynamic political economy model, which predicts that landowners facing higher competition are less likely to resist the dilution of such norms. The results have important implications for understanding non-economic channels through which landowning patterns may impact development. 

“Road Connectivity, State Capacity and Bureaucratic Efficacy: Evidence from India,” (Working Paper)

Several developing countries have institutionalized social protection schemes to serve socio-economically marginalized groups. However, timely delivery of such public services remains a challenge. In this paper, I test the hypothesis that enhanced state capacity by means of improved roads can speed up delivery of public services by facilitating easier commutes for on-field bureaucrats. Using village-level data from 2014-15, I estimate the impact of rural roads on the timeliness of last-mile delivery in the context of a national public works scheme in India. Using an identification strategy inspired by fuzzy RD, exploiting exogenous variation in rural road construction provided by arbitrary population-based thresholds under a national road construction program, I find evidence that rural roads lead to a reduction in time taken to process beneficiary payments. Results from heterogeneity analysis show that these effects are driven by villages far away from local government headquarters. Spatial heterogeneity in treatment effects may point to complementarity between state capacity and bureaucrats’ incentives.