PhD Thesis chapters
Rural local governments and their management of public healthcare: Do own revenues matter?
An examination of the efficiency of local governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in India
Are there political returns to the generation of own revenues? Evidence from a 20-year panel of gram panchayats in India
Other research
[Working paper with Pritha Dev and Hari K. Nagarajan] [Current Status: Under Review]
Abstract: How does physical space influence social network formation? We examine the causal impact of neighborhood composition on caste-based homophily in rural Indian villages. Using a game-theoretic model of sequential household settlement and a new instrumental variable based on historical household arrival patterns, we show that households with more same-caste neighbors are substantially more likely to form caste-homophilous social ties. We develop a dynamic location choice model where households from two castes sequentially settle in a village. The households make their location decisions based on existing households and their expectations about the future entrants. The model shows that with or without households preferring to locate next to other households from their own caste, arrival patterns and group size critically shape settlement outcomes. Next, leveraging nationally representative data on 96,000 households, we find that caste-based homophily is increasing in the number of same caste immediate neighbors even though households rarely form links with neighbors. Our results are robust to alternative definitions of key variables, alternative estimation methodology, alternative sampling techniques and a placebo test. We document interesting heterogeneities of neighborhood composition effects across caste categories, landholding statuses and street-level public good densities. This study highlights how the physical organization of economic space critically shapes patterns of social capital, with implications for the design of inclusive rural policies.
[Current Status: Draft coming soon]
Abstract: Women empowerment has been identified as a crucial enabler of economic development. However, low access to financial resources among women continues to be a concern, with several policies having been implemented to incentivize account ownership in a bid to increase their intrahousehold bargaining power. In this paper, we examine the impact of one such policy related to the expansion of financial extension services through the Business Correspondents (BCs) in rural India. Charged with the responsibility of providing branchless banking services at the doorstep of rural households, BCs are expected to differentially lower transactions costs of account ownership for women vis-à-vis men. Using a unique expanding panel of rural households in Uttar Pradesh, we leverage quasi-exogenous variation in the district-level supply of BCs to show that the proliferation of BCs led to an increase in the likelihood of account ownership among women. Further, women residing in villages covered by BCs enjoy higher resource shares in comparison to their male counterparts. Our analysis suggests that the impact of BC proliferation on resource shares runs exclusively through the channel of account ownership, and independent of the impact of other policies – such as the PMJDY. We draw inferences about the the design and implementation of the BC policy in activating women's agency within the household while contrasting it with other policies that do not contain an agentic component.
[Current Status: Draft coming soon]
Abstract: Estimates suggest that over a 100 million women are “missing” from the economy due to systematic neglect and discrimination. This paper extends the concern to the intrahousehold domain by asking whether women’s share of household resources tends to decline over time, imposing on them an age penalty. While various initiatives aim to strengthen women’s agency through economic participation, it remains unclear whether these lead to sustained improvements in control over household resources. We examine whether financial inclusion can mitigate this age penalty for women in rural India. Leveraging quasi-exogenous variation in the expansion of banking agents (Business Correspondents) following an RBI directive, we estimate the effects of improved financial access on women’s resource shares. These agents deliver doorstep banking services and reduce gender-specific barriers to account usage. Using a three-wave panel across 30 villages in Uttar Pradesh, we find that financial inclusion raises women’s resource shares, particularly between ages 25 and 40. Early-life access flattens the age-penalty curve, suggesting cumulative benefits. These findings underscore financial inclusion as a policy that arrests the slow disappearance of women from within the household and the larger economy.
[Current Status: Draft coming soon]
[Current Status: Draft coming soon]
[Current Status: Analysis completed]
Selected Works in Progress
