Pre-Phd Publications (Peer Reviewed Journals)
Intergenerational Co-residence and Women's Employment in Urban India (with Ishita Mukhopadhyay and Sukanta Bhattacharya), Indian Journal of Labour Economics doi.org/10.1007/s41027-023-00456-3
Crime and trust in institutions: evidence from India, Applied Economics Letters doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2022.2129564
Albeit Satisfied: Unveiling Female Paid Domestic Workers in India (with Ishita Mukhopadhyay), Indian Journal of Human Development doi.org/10.1177/09737030221123189
Work in Progress
Unsafe Daughters: Sexual Violence in Public Spheres and Intrahousehold Preference for Sons (Job Market Paper) (With Sukanta Bhattacharya and Ishita Mukhopadhyay)
Abstract: Increasing non-partner sexual violence against young women is an emerging concern among parents with girls. Against this backdrop, we examine the short-term effect of rising sexual crimes against women in public spheres on son-preferring behaviors within households. Using a cost-benefit framework, we rationalize parents preferring boys in response to the rising safety costs of girls. To estimate the effect, we exploit the plausibly exogenous Park Street gang rape case in Kolkata (2012) as a natural experiment, and document that the incident had a positive causal impact on the intrahousehold reported son preference. We identify the increasing perceived safety cost of daughters as the potential driver. To ensure the external validity of such stark findings, we further linked data on women's fertility history to the administrative sexual crime records at the district and state levels from India. Employing an instrumental variable approach, we confirm that the lack of female safety outside home motivates both revealed and reported preferences for boys.
Changing Preferences: Property Rights Reform and Women's Attitude Towards Intergenerational Support in India
Abstract: The study investigates whether property rights reform, an exogenous shock, allowing women's access to non-labor income changes their preferences for intergenerational support, and, if so, through what channels. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation in women's entitlement to property rights in India stemming from the staggered implementation of the Hindu Succession Amendment Act (HSAA), I document that the reform significantly reduced women's expectation to live with and receive financial assistance from both sons and daughters. The result is primarily driven by increased labor market participation and improved spousal communication. The paper contributes to the understanding of how legal intervention promotes norm-shifting in a traditional society.
Formal Institutions and Evolution of Social Norms (With Sukanta Bhattacharya)
Abstract: We provide a simple analytical structure and investigate the role of formal rules in shaping cooperative norms. We define norm as the average of all individuals’ behavior within a society. Key elements of the model are as follows: a representative agent’s utility depends on his type, the behavior he chooses, existing norms, and the quality of formal institutions; a person of high type chooses higher action and receives additional utility from cooperation whereas the low-type person becomes better off from ”free-riding”; there exists a society-specific honesty norm such that a better norm generates a positive externality on each individual’s payoff; there is a legal benchmark based on which formal institution evaluates behavior. A law-breaker is punished by the formal institution depending on the quality of enforcement characterized by the probability of detection. Using this framework we obtain the dynamics of norm. Our key findings suggest that in the short run, a stringent law leads to welfare loss whereas in a longer time horizon, welfare gain is achievable since tightening the law eventually promotes better norms.