Working Papers: 


(Presented at Southern Economic Association'23, Asian & Australasian Society of Labor Economics'23, Asian Econometric Society Conference'23, DSE Winter School'23)

Working paper: IIMB Working Paper


Abstract: 

The human capital theory asserts that expenditures on health and education are complementary investments. As such, health investments increase education demand, thereby increasing educational expenditures. This paper examines the impact of health insurance on three aspects of a household's demand for education: (a) the share of educational expenditures; (b) the actual educational expenditures; and (c) the probability of taking out an educational loan. Drawing on a health insurance scheme in India, this paper uses a modified difference-in-difference strategy and two waves of the Indian Human Development Survey (2004-05 and 2011-12) and finds an increase of 10 percent in the share of educational expenditures, a 39 percent increase in actual expenditures, and a 185 percent increase in the likelihood of obtaining educational loans during the period. It is more pronounced among households living below the poverty line. All results are robust to changes in subsamples.




Abstract: 

The paper introduces a new Box-Cox type power-transformed exponential distribution into a two-tier stochastic frontier model. These distributions are more flexible than commonly used ones like exponential or half-normal, allowing estimation in a wide range of settings. Unlike traditional distributions, this new distribution can have a non-zero mode and be left or right-skewed. This flexibility enables estimation without assuming the skewness of the underlying inefficiency distributions. Simulations with synthetic data show that likelihood-based estimation is stable and converges in a reasonable time. The computed inefficiencies closely match the true distribution, enhancing the model’s credibility. 


Work in Progress: