Nishith Prakash

The Returns to English-Language Skills in India

India’s colonial legacy and linguistic diversity give English an important role in its economy, and this role has expanded due to globalization in recent decades. In this study, we use individual-level data from the 2005 India Human Development Survey to quantify the effects of English-language skills on wages. After controlling for age, social group, schooling, geography, and proxies for ability, we find that hourly wages are on average 34% higher for men who speak fluent English and 13% higher for men who speak a little English relative to men who do not speak English. The return to fluent English is as large as the return to completing secondary school and half as large as the return to completing a bachelor’s degree. In addition, we find that more experienced and more educated workers receive higher returns to English. The complementarity between English skills and education appears to have strengthened over time—only the more educated among young workers receive a premium for English-speaking ability, whereas older workers across all education groups do.

The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India

We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India generated by national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which revised reservations are implemented. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-2000, we find that increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes significantly reduces poverty while increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes has no impact on poverty. Political reservation for Scheduled Tribes has a greater effect on rural poverty than urban poverty, and appears to benefit people near the poverty line as well as those far below it.

DO SCHOOL LUNCH SUBSIDIES CHANGE THE DIETARY PATTERNS OF CHILDREN FROM LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS?

This article examines the effects of school lunch subsidies provided through the meanstested component of the National School Lunch Program on the dietary patterns of children age 10- to 13 yr in the USA. Analyzing data on 5,140 public school children in 5th grade during spring 2004, we find significant increases in the number of servings of fruit, green salad, carrots, other vegetables, and 100 percent fruit juice consumed in one week for subsidized children relative to unsubsidized children. The effects on fruit and other vegetable consumption are stronger among the children receiving a full subsidy, as opposed to only a partial subsidy, and indicate the size of the subsidy is an important policy lever underlying the programs effectiveness. Overall, the findings provide the strongest empirical evidence to date that the means-tested school lunch subsidies increase childrens consumption over a time period longer than one school day.

Do Employment Quotas Explain the Occupational Choices of Disadvantaged Minorities in India

This article investigates the effects of a large-scale public sector employment quota policy for disadvantaged minorities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) in India on their occupational choices, as defined by skill level, during the 1980s and 1990s. We find that, first, the employment quota policy significantly affects the occupational structure of both disadvantaged minority populations. In response to the employment quotas, individuals belonging to the Scheduled Caste group are more likely to choose high-skill occupations and less likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations, while individuals belonging to the Scheduled Tribe group are less likely to choose high-skill occupations and more likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations. Second, the impact of the employment quotas is significantly related with an individuals years of schooling. Overall, the results indicate that the employment quota policy changes the occupational choices of individuals within the targeted populations and contributes to their improved socio-economic standing.

A Distributional Analysis of Public–Private Wage Differential in India

We investigate the public-private wage differential in India using nationally representative micro data. While the existing literature focuses on average wage differential, we study the differences in the wage distributions. The raw wage differential between public and private sector is positive across the entire distribution for both genders irrespective of area of residence. A quantile regression based decomposition analysis reveals that the differences in observed characteristics (covariate effect) account for only a small part of the wage differential at lower quantiles, but a larger part at higher quantiles. At the very top of the distribution, covariate effect account for a majority of the observed wage differential.

Girls for Sale? Child Sex Ratio and Girls Trafficking in India

Illegal trafficking of women is a result of their disadvantageous position in the society that is often reflected in increasing preference for son and neglect for daughters. Multiple reports point to India as country confronted with both higher levels of illegal trafficking of girls and abnormal child sex ratios in favor of boys. In this paper we examine if a skewed sex ratio and shortage of girls is associated with their illegal trafficking in India. Using panel data of 29 Indian states from 1980-2011, we find that 100 unit increase in child sex ratio is associated with a 0.635% increase in illegal trafficking of girls. We find the association to be heterogeneous by female empowerment, crime against women and party rule in the state. We find that association between child sex ratio and illegal trafficking of girls is stronger and larger in magnitude in states with greater female empowerment. Overall, it appears that the results are driven by both greater reporting and greater incidence of illegal girls trafficking. Contrary to popular belief, the results do not vary differentially by states with larger share of schedule tribe population or states bordering Nepal and Bangladesh. Our results survive variety of robustness checks.

Impact of the Village Health and Sanitation Committee on health-care utilisation: findings from propensity score matching in India

Abstract Background In order to improve the availability, accessibility, quality, and use of the public health system, the Government of India has engaged the community and local population in planning and monitoring health service delivery in rural areas. The Indian Government instituted the Village Health and Sanitation Committee (VHSC), which serves as a forum for village planning and monitoring. This study evaluates the impact of these village-level bodies on utilisation of health services in Indian villages. Methods The paper analyses the third waves of the District Level Household Survey (DLHS) implemented in 2007–08. DLHS is the only health survey that is representative at the district level. The evaluation uses a quasi-experimental method, propensity score matching, to separate the causal effect of VHSC on utilisation of health services. Several village-level and individual-level characteristics are used to find a control village comparable to the treatment village. Findings Preliminary results indicate that 29% (6554/22 824) of the Indian villages instituted VHSC by 2008. Households in VHSC villages are more likely to seek modern care and visit health facilities than are those in non-VHSC villages. VHSC participants are significantly more likely to visit modern health facilities when their children are sick with either fever or diarrhoea. In-facility births are also higher in the treated villages after controlling for socioeconomic confounding variables. The percentage of women seeking antenatal and postnatal care is also higher in VHSC villages than in non-VHSC villages. All these results are statistically significant at the 95% level, although data are preliminary. Interpretation The National Rural Health Mission aims to empower the community and local bodies to take leadership of health and sanitation issues at the local level. Grassroots community bodies such as VHSC are important steps in decentralising policy formulation and community participation. Community-based participatory methods have emerged as a response to conventional approaches that historically have failed to make notable improvement in population health in developing countries. Funding None.

Does Political Reservation for Minorities Affect Child Labor? Evidence from India

This paper examines the impact of state level political reservation for two minority groups – Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes – on child labor in India. We estimate the effect of political reservation on child labor by exploiting the state variation in the share of seats reserved for the two groups in state legislative assemblies mandated by the Constitution of India. Using data from state and household level surveys on fifteen major Indian states, we find that at the household level, Schedule Tribe reservation decreases the incidence of child labor, while Scheduled Caste reservation increases the total number of children working. Our results survive a variety of robustness checks and potential explanations for the differential impact of SC and ST political reservation are also explored, including geographic isolation, caste fragmentation, support for the Congress Party, and decentralization of power.

Does constitutionalizing economic and social rights promote their fulfillment

ABSTRACT This article explores whether constitutional provisions promote fulfillment of economic and social rights. This is accomplished by combining unique data on both enforceable law and directive principles with the Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment Index (SERF Index), which measures government fulfillment of such rights. The results indicate that there is a positive and significant correlation between enforceable law provisions and the right to health and education components of the SERF Index. The strongest relationship appears to be for the right to health component where the inclusion of an enforceable law provision on economic and social rights in the constitution is correlated with an increase in the health component by 9.55, or 13.0%, on average. These results support the idea that constitutional provisions may be one way to improve economic and social rights outcomes.

Effect of Political Decentralization and Female Leadership on Institutional Births and Child Mortality in Rural Bihar, India

In this paper, we investigate the impacts of political decentralization and women reservation in local governance on institutional births and child mortality in the state of Bihar, India. Using the difference-in-differences methodology, we find a significant positive association between political decentralization and institutional births. We also find that the increased participation of women at local governance led to an increased survival rate of children belonging to richer households. We argue that our results are consistent with female leaders having policy preference for women and child well-being.