Prakarsh Singh

Impact of Terrorism on Investment Decisions of Farmers

This article provides evidence for a particular channel through which sustained terrorism in rural areas may affect growth in developing countries. Using micro-level data from agricultural surveys during the period of insurgency in Punjab (India), I find significant negative effects of terrorism on the level of investment in long-term agricultural technology, but effects are small and insignificant for short-term investment. The presence of a major terrorist incident in a district in a year reduces long-term fixed investment by around 17 percent after controlling for district fixed-effects, time trends, district trends, and other farm-level controls. These negative effects are greater for richer farmers and those living in bordering districts. This results in a farmer losing close to 4 percent of his income annually because of the insurgency.

Performance Pay and Information: Reducing Child Undernutrition in India

This paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of performance pay to government health workers and how performance pay interacts with demand-side information. In a controlled study covering 145 child day-care centers, I implement three separate treatments. First, I engineer an exogenous change in compensation for childcare workers from fixed wages to performance pay. Second, I only provide mothers with information without incentivizing the workers. Third, I combine the first two treatments. This helps us identify if performance pay and public information are complements or substitutes in reducing child malnutrition. I find that combining incentives to workers and information to mothers reduces weight-for-age malnutrition by 4.2 percentage points in 3 months, although individually the effects are negligible. This complementarity is shown to be driven by better mother–worker communication and the mother feeding more calorific food at home. There is also a sustained long-run positive impact of the combined treatment after the experiment concluded.

Gender-Differential Effects of Conflict on Education: The Case of the 1981-1993 Punjab Insurgency

This study explores the long-run effect of the 1981-1993 Punjab Insurgency on the educational attainment of adults who were between ages 6-16 years at the time of the insurgency, using the 2005 India Human Development Survey. We find a substantial and statistically significant negative effect of terrorism on educational attainment. To explore the channels through which the conflict affected education, we use a unique historical dataset on the annual expenditure decisions by farmers in the state of Punjab during 1978-1989. We find a significant reduction in expenditure on education by households with a high ratio of girls to boys and those residing in violence affected districts, which suggests that this reduction was one of the demand-side channels through which conflict affected education.

A Dream Experiment in Development Economics.

In this article, the authors discuss a unique project carried out by 13 teams of four students each in the undergraduate Development Economics class during the 2012 spring semester at a private liberal arts college. The goal of the “Dream Experiment” was to think of an idea that promotes development, employs concepts from development economics, uses a real-world situation from a developing country, and has implications for policy if the experiment goes ahead. The authors present details of the projects modus operandi, provide a case study as an example, and highlight lessons for economics pedagogy.

Learning and Behavioral Spillovers of Nutritional Information

ABSTRACT This paper provides evidence for informational spillovers within urban slums in Chandigarh, India. I identify three groups, a treatment group, a neighbouring spillover group, and a non-adjacent pure control group. Mothers of children (aged three to six years) enrolled in government day-care centres are given recipe books in the treatment group to reduce malnutrition in their children. Spillovers to neighbouring (untreated) mothers can be through social learning or imitation. Results from a difference-in-differences analysis show that nutritional knowledge measured through a quiz increases among neighbouring untreated mothers relative to a control group. Neighbouring mothers exhibit learning spillovers, changes in dietary behaviour and a reduction in food expenditure regardless of their level of literacy. Spillovers not only raise the cost effectiveness of health information programmes but are important to consider when designing an experiment as causal effects of treatments can be attenuated if the spillover group is used as a control group.

Economic Growth and Recovery after Civil Wars

Using a fractional integration approach, we find that developing countries recover their economic growth faster than developed countries in response to a shock. The main finding is that longer civil conflicts are associated with a faster recovery process. To investigate deeper on this issue, we explore correlations with components of GDP. Higher government spending is correlated with faster recoveries post longer conflicts and higher consumption and investment are linked to faster recoveries following shorter conflicts.

Impact of Caregiver Incentives on Child Health: Evidence from an Experiment with Anganwadi Workers in India

This paper tests the effectiveness of performance pay and bonuses among government childcare workers in India. In a controlled study of 160 ICDS centers serving over 4,000 children, we randomly assign workers to either fixed bonuses or payments based on the nutritional status of children in their care, and also collect data from a control group receiving only standard salaries. In all three study arms mothers receive nutrition information. We find that performance pay reduces underweight prevalence by about 5 percentage points over 3 months, and height improves by about one centimeter. Impacts on weight continue when incentives are renewed and return to parallel trends thereafter. Fixed bonuses are less expensive but lead to smaller and less precisely estimated effects than performance pay, especially for children near malnutrition thresholds. Both treatments improve worker effort and communication with mothers, who in turn feed a more calorific diet to children at home.

The Effects of Child Physical Maltreatment on Nutritional Outcomes: Evidence from Peru

Abstract Do children whose parents use physical punishment as a disciplinary method have lower anthropometric measures? Using data for Peruvian children aged 0–5 years, we employ instrumental variables for physical punishment to overcome endogeneity problems common to the household violence literature. Across varying levels of controls, children exposed to physical punishment have significantly poorer short-term nutritional outcomes; although there is no effect on long-term nutrition. We explore heterogeneous effects and potential mechanisms. Children exposed to physical maltreatment fall ill more frequently and are less likely to access preventive and curative healthcare.

Violence and the market for food. Evidence from Kenya

We study the impact of post election violence in Kenya on the food market ain Mombasa and find empirical evidence against predictions of high volatility of prices following violence. Using a data set of flour producing firm, we identity the degree of persistence in prices and quantities by means of techniques based on the concept of long term memory or long range dependence. Prices are found to be highly persistent in both wheat and maize flour, with orders of integration which are around 1 or even above 1, implying permanent effect of the shocks. On the contrary, quantities, though also persistent, appear to be fractionally integrated, with orders of integration in the interval (0, 0.5) pointing towards stationarity, long term memory mean reverting behaviour. Violence is associated with an insignificant increase in prices of both products and a significant decrease in quantities.

Absolute Versus Relative Performance Pay: Evidence from an Experiment Targeting Child Malnutrition in West Bengal

We carry out a randomized controlled experiment in West Bengal, India to test three separate performance pay treatments in the public health sector. Performance is judged on improvements in child malnutrition. First, we exogenously change wages of government employed child care workers through a basic level of absolute incentives. The second treatment introduces high absolute incentives. Finally, we also test for the impact of basic relative incentives on child health. All treatments include supplying mothers with recipe books. Overall, the results suggest that high absolute incentives reduce severe malnutrition by about 6.3% with controls and 4.9% without controls over three months. Large increases in weight are observed in boys as opposed to girls and same religion mother-worker pairs tend to be more productive in improving weight. This suggests that taste-based preferences may play a role even when workers are incentivized.