Delhi Political Economy Workshop Series

Delhi Political Economy Workshop Series is a platform where researchers, both faculty members as well as graduate students, can present their ongoing work on political economy related ideas (both theoretical as well as empirical) and get feedback from people. There is now a critical number of people in India working on political economy related questions. We therefore think that the workshop series would provide a valuable platform to bounce ideas and get conversations going among people with similar interests across institutions, both within and outside India.

We will hold this twice every year, in August (the summer edition) and February (the winter edition). We kicked off the series with the first workshop on August 23rd (Friday), 2019. The details of the winter 2021 workshop is below. The attendance is free, no registration is required. If you would like to present your work in progress in the future editions, please get in touch with Abhinash Borah (abhinash.borah@ashoka.edu.in) or Sabyasachi Das (sabyasachi.das@ashoka.edu.in).

Delhi Political Economy Workshop Series, Summer Edition, 2021

Venue: Zoom

Workshop Schedule

Date: September 25th (Saturday), 2021 (all times are in IST)

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Holy Cow! Religious violence, informal cattle trade, and externalities in India by Anand Murugesan (CEU)

Abstract: We study how religious violence breaks down informal markets, with economic costs for large sections in India. Coinciding with the rise in Hindu nationalism, India recorded an exponential increase in violent attacks on persons suspected of trading cattle for slaughter by cow-vigilante groups in the last decade. We assemble a unique dataset to evaluate the impact of exposure to religious violence using: a quadrimestral representative panel of Indian households, a state-level panel of road accidents, media reports of vigilante violence, and historical data on Hindu-Muslim conflicts in India. Exploiting the violence's temporal and spatial variation, we causally estimate its impact on the cattle trade market with an event study design. We show that violence led to a more than 10 percent decline in cattle holdings among households in the affected regions. Next, we causally identify the effect of violence on the number of stray cattle using a proxy measure: the number of road accidents due to stray cattle. We construct a Bartik instrument for vigilante violence using historical Hindu-Muslim conflicts (1950 - 2000) to find an alarming 200% increase in road accidents due to stray cattle in affected regions. At least 1500 deaths and 2500 injuries in road accidents can be attributed to vigilante violence. The results are consistent with predictions from our theoretical model. Finally, we examine externalities on farmers by conducting a primary household survey in Rajasthan, the largest state, with spatial variation in the violence. We find that farmers self-report extensive crop damages from stray cattle and high precautionary costs in regions experiencing violence.

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Responsiveness to the Bully Pulpit Message: The Role of Event Memory by Yatish Arya (Warwick University)

Abstract: The “bully pulpit” is often used by politicians to try to influence voters. But what makes voters more or less responsive to messages from the pulpit? We build a model based on Bordalo, Gennaioli & Shleifer (2020)’s theory of memory and attention that predicts that voters’ responsiveness to political messages depends upon events. We test this prediction using the 2019 national election in India, where Prime Minister Modi’s speeches focused on his aggressive response to deadly attacks on soldiers. Using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that the vote share of the PM’s incumbent party increased by 4.6 pp in the home constituencies of dead soldiers. Text analysis of Modi’s speeches reveals that only deaths played up in his speeches affect public opinion. We conduct several robustness checks and find other results consistent with the model.