Research and projects

Publications

  What Did They Say? Respondent identity, question framing and the measurement of employment (with Rosa Abraham, Hema Swaminathan and Rahul Lahoti). World Bank Economic Review 2026. 

Media Mention: The India Forum. View

Abstract: Using data from a primary survey conducted in rural India, we examine how two key survey design features - respondent identity and question framing - affect employment estimates. First, we assess the causal impact of (i) replacing single weekly employment question with a set of detailed activity-specific questions, and (ii) changing the reference period from a week to individual days. We find that the detailed module yields significantly higher estimates for women’s employment with no effect on men. Second, using spousal respondent pairs, we find that proxy reports by men significantly underestimate women’s employment. For men, there is no deviation between self and proxy estimates.  Within each type of employment, there are significant deviations for both genders. Intra-household analysis suggests misreporting is driven by asymmetric information and gender norms. These findings highlight the importance of self-reporting and detailed questions for accurately measuring employment with implications for improving survey design in resource-constrained contexts.

Using Laboratory and Field Experiments to Examine the Impact of Stereotypes (with Sujoy Chakravarty). Studies in Indian Politics. 2025.

Abstract: This paper offers a methodological exploration of the experimental approach in social science research, with a focus on studies that explore the economic impact of stereotypes. The latter are widely held but fixed and oversimplified images pertaining to social groups. The prevalence of such beliefs which may on average be incorrect, may lead to significant losses in economic efficiency and sub-optimal social and developmental outcomes. In this context, experiments provide a controlled environment to isolate causal relationships, enabling researchers to identify the effects of stereotypes on behavior and performance. In studies of stereotype threat, for example, laboratory and field experiments allow the manipulation of identity salience and other contextual factors to observe their impact on outcomes such as cognitive performance, effort, and decision-making. As real world micro data on behaviour of agents within institutions is difficult to capture and metricize, experiments allow scholars an easy and rigourous way to test theoretical models, and investigate mechanisms underlying complex social phenomena particularly in the study of inter-group discrimination in labour markets.

Working Papers

Colourism, confidence and productivity: Experimental evidence from India (with Sujoy Chakravarty and Takashi Kurosaki) Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5120351 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5120351. January, 2025 (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Much of the developing world was colonized by Europeans and Central Asians who had lighter skin tone than the people whom they colonized. Cultural beliefs often change slowly and cultural stereotypes, even today, associate light skin colour with superiority, power, rationality, intellect, and beauty. We report that when skin colour is made salient in an experiment with 799 Indian undergraduate students, light-skinned students perform better, i.e., obtain a stereotype boost on a test considered to be diagnostic of verbal and analytical ability, compared to a control group of otherwise similar students. However, no complementary pattern of lowering of performance, i.e. stereotype threat, is seen among darker individuals when they are made conscious of their skin colour. Disaggregating participants by sample attributes, we find that the stereotype boost in productivity is stronger for lighter-skinned individuals of the upper caste, lighter-skinned women and those who consider themselves to be physically attractive. Darker men display increased task confidence, though this is not accompanied by an increase in task productivity. Finally, among individuals who perceive themselves poorer, we find that those with a lighter complexion experience a boost, while darker individuals experience a stereotype threat, which lowers task performance. 

Policy Writings

Looking beyond employment-unemployment: Labour utilisation and Time-related underemployment, evidence from labour market experiments in India. Measurement brief-NDIC Fellows Programme(2023-24), NCAER National Data Innovation Centre, New Delhi, 2024.

Measuring Women’s Employment. State of India's Livelihoods (2025): 125. (with Rosa Abraham, Hema Swaminathan and Rahul Lahoti)

Work In Progress

Effect of Mobility on Employment Outcomes: Causal Evidence from India

In this paper we show how increased physical mobility leads to increased participation in paid work among married women, using a nation-wide policy as an exogenous shock. Exploiting the targeted introduction of Pradhan Mantri Jandhan Yojana (PMJDY), a nation-wide financial inclusion shock, we use a Panel IV to causally predict women’s economic participation. Using various rounds of the nationally representative IHDS and administrative data, we argue that financial inclusion, as proxied by women’s bank account ownership, improves her intrahousehold bargaining which in turn increases her likelihood of employment in paid work. Exploiting district-level variation in PMJDY penetration, we show that employment gains concentrate for previously unbanked women in districts with high density of jandhan accounts and these effects are concentrated among purdah-observing women, where mobility constraints are most binding. Our results establish financial inclusion as an instrument through which socio-economic change occurs. The results suggest that the employment returns to financial inclusion are bounded by women's freedom of movement, indicating complementarities between banking access and investments in women's safety, transport, and social norm change.

When Colour Matters: Experimental Evidence on Skin Tone Salience and the Paradox of Reverse Discrimination (with Sujoy Chakravarty and Divya Vaid)

Abstract: We explore the effect of making skin colour salient on the perceptions of everyday discrimination of a group of college students from Kolkata and Delhi, India. A colourism stereotype is invoked for our treatment group, following which participants in both the treatment and control groups report their experiences of discrimination. We find that individuals in our treatment group perceive higher overall discrimination and skin colour and appearance-based discrimination as compared to a randomised control group who do not participate in our stereotype elicitation exercise. Disaggregating participants of lighter and darker skin tones, we find that, in addition to darker people in our treatment group, lighter individuals also report perceiving significantly higher overall discrimination. We further find that lighter-skinned individuals in our sample are, on average, more ‘elite’ in terms of income, caste, and parental education levels than darker individuals. We thus conjecture that the discrimination perception of the elite, particularly with respect to caste, socioeconomic class and education, as a result of our stereotype elicitation exercise, may be a result of feelings of reverse discrimination and competitive victimhood experienced by the privileged.

Skin Colour Stereotypes, Emotional Affect and Economic Decision-Making (with Sujoy Chakravarty)

Abstract: In this study, we explore if emotions induced by evoking a skin colour stereotype affect self-confidence, task productivity and risk preference of an individual. Our experiment reinforces a polarizing skin colour stereotype using photographs of famous Indian actors in their glamorous light-skinned appearance and in roles where they darken their skin colour to play underprivileged characters. We find that lighter-skinned individuals who register higher positive affect after our stereotype elicitation exercise display higher confidence, task productivity, and appetite for risk-taking compared to their counterparts in the control group who have increased positive affect but are not taken through this exercise. Darker individuals in our treatment group who self-report negative affects display higher self-confidence compared to their counterparts in the control group. However, darker individuals in our treatment group with either positive or negative affects do not register significantly high productivity or risk appetite as compared with their counterparts in the control group. Our results suggest that reinforcing the superiority of a privileged group may lead to increases in productivity and risk-taking that is mediated through the affect channel.