Research

Abstract

While residential schools in North America have long been dismantled, India continues to expand its own residential school system, with a stated aim of "closing the gap" in education between Indigenous students and their peers. I provide the first causal evidence of the effect of enrollment in a residential school on the educational attainment of Indigenous women in India. Applying triple difference and instrumental variable strategies to a newly constructed dataset, I find that school exposure reduces educational attainment by up to four years. The result is driven by disruptions to family dynamics. Crowding out of day-school options by residential schools, along with mandatory residence at these schools, forces girls to cancel enrollment to fulfill their domestic work obligations.

Abstract

As state tools, anti-poverty programs generally reduce political violence. Since the state often plays a role in the conflict, potential questions arise about the nuances of politics and program effectiveness. I examine India's NREGA program (2005-2008), which guaranteed labour income, to understand how political alignment between local representatives and the ruling state government affects the program's impact in conflict-prone areas. Using a difference-in-discontinuity design, I show that alignment leads to increased Naxalite violence in NREGA-exposed constituencies due to clashes between state forces and rebels. This suggests that effective program implementation in aligned constituencies threatens rebel recruitment from poorer populations. Applying the same method to the Northeast's ethnic insurgency, where rebel groups do not recruit disproportionately from poorer segments, shows no alignment effects.