with Dr. Sonia Akter (Australian National University) and Marian Edward Fila
We present the first evidence of the causal effect of access to good quality and reliable electricity on clean cooking fuel adoption and use in rural areas of six energy poor Indian states using household-level panel data from 2015 and 2018. We exploit the village-level variation in the coverage of a nationwide government program, (i.e., the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)), that aimed to improve the quality and reliability of rural residential electricity supply. The village-level nightlights data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument was used as a proxy for the DDUGJY program coverage and an instrument to generate exogenous variation in household access to good quality and reliable electricity. Our results show a positive effect of access to good quality and reliable electricity on liquefied petroleum gas adoption and use and firewood dis-adoption for the below poverty line households.. As for pathways, improvements in economic wellbeing, enterprise growth, information access, and energy-efficient technology adoption played important mediating roles. These findings, for the first time, reveal the complementary role of electricity quality and reliability not only on economic wellbeing but also on other important development outcomes such as energy transition.
with Dr. Jeremy W Lim-Soh (Duke-NUS) and Dr. Poh Lin Tan (LKYSPP, NUS)
COVID-19 has brought about multiple stressors to the family, including fear of infection, physical confinement, disturbed routines and caregiving burdens. However, not much is known about the role of dense residential crowding on life satisfaction and spousal relationships, and lockdown restrictions. Intuitively, sharing a small living space with others could exacerbate the negative impact of lockdown restrictions during the pandemic. Using survey data on married women collected before, during and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Singapore, we test the hypothesis that residential crowding amplifies the consequences of the lockdown on life satisfaction and spousal relationships. Multinomial logistic regressions on housing type and area per person suggest that women in more spacious homes were less likely to experience worsened life satisfaction at the peak of movement restrictions. We also found that having access to private green spaces was associated with improved life satisfaction and spousal relationships throughout the two years of the pandemic.
School consolidation—the merging of small schools into larger ones—has become a prominent policy response to the growing number of low-enrolment schools in developing countries. In India, the shift in policy objectives to improve efficiency in education delivery has led many states to adopt enrolment-based cut-offs to identify schools for closure. Using enrolment criteria from ten states, I show that a 10 percentage-point increase in the share of marginalized students raises the probability of a school meeting closure thresholds by 0.32 percentage points. I then provide the first causal evidence on the effects of full school consolidation on enrolments in India, drawing on administrative data and exploiting variation in timing of school closures across villages in five states. Consolidation reduces village-level enrolments by 4.45%, with losses concentrated among Scheduled Caste students and in socio-economically disadvantaged villages. Lack of public transport and caste-based segregation across schools emerge as important mediating factors. These results underscore that efficiency-driven reforms risk deepening educational inequalities and highlight the need for safeguards such as transport provision and measures to ensure inclusion in consolidated schools.
This paper presents the first empirical evidence on the effects of schools reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) - India’s indigenous communities, on their education outcomes. Using the staggered establishment of these schools across villages in India, I show that the entry of a reserved school in a village has positive effects on enrolment and education attainment of Scheduled Tribe students and decreases their dropout rates relative to those of students belonging to mainstream social groups. In addition, the establishment of reserved schools catering to lower grades, especially entry-level grades such as lower and upper primary schools, has the highest effects on enrollment and retention of ST students. Further, the establishment of reserved schools also decreases the average social diversity in
non-reserved mainstream schools, indicating a sorting or movement of indigenous students to reserved schools. These results suggest that reserving schools for indigenous communities can help remove some of the barriers to their education such as geographical isolation, fear of discrimination in mainstream schools, and a lack of culturally sensitive/relatable curriculum. This research points
to the need for an integrationist policy approach to address the existing education gaps facing indigenous groups.
Using a survey experiment conducted in India, we investigate how the content of textbooks impacts attitudes toward Muslims, a religious minority that has faced persistent discrimination and disadvantage. Participants were assigned to read ethnocentric, inclusive, or neutral excerpts from official school textbooks. Then, they evaluated fictitious job applicants from different religious groups. In summary, we find that textbook content matters. Exposure to inclusive narratives increased favorable ratings of Muslim applicants, relative to Hindu applicants, for the lower status job. These effects were strongest among participants from lower castes and those educated in public secondary schools. By leveraging real curricular material in a politically salient context, our findings provide rare evidence that textbook narratives influence intergroup attitudes. More broadly, this work highlights how curriculum design, at the center of contestation in many countries, can serve as a powerful tool to foster social cohesion.