Eviction Threats and Investment Incentives

We show that the effect of eviction threats on unobservable investment effort can be positive. We demonstrate this apparently counter-intuitive result in a model of tenancy where investment by a tenant in the current period raises the chances of doing well in the next period, and therefore retaining the job in the period after next period. If the tenant earns rents, the landlord can partly substitute eviction threats for the crop share as an incentive device. This makes it more attractive for him to elicit investment effort. However, there is a direct negative effect of eviction threats on the tenant's discount factor. We find conditions under which the former effect dominates and eviction threats can increase investment incentives.Sharecropping tenancy, eviction threats, investment incentives.

Marriage in modern India: does caste still matter for mate selection?

LSE’s Maitreesh Ghatak, Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Esther Duflo (MIT), and Jeanne Lafortune (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) analyse why a strong preference for intra-caste marriages endures despite changing economic incentives, which should have made characteristics such as education or income more attractive. This article is the second instalment of a three-part series on changing marriage norms among middle-class Indians

Marry for What: Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India

This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. We use a unique data set on individuals who placed matrimonial advertisements in a major newspaper, the responses they received, how they ranked them, and the eventual matches. We estimate the preferences for caste, education, beauty, and other attributes. We then compute a set of stable matches, which we compare to the actual matches that we observe in the data. We find the stable matches to be quite similar to the actual matches, suggesting a relatively frictionless marriage market. One of our key empirical findings is that there is a very strong preference for within-caste marriage. However, because both sides of the market share this preference and because the groups are fairly homogeneous in terms of the distribution of other attributes, in equilibrium, the cost of wanting to marry within-caste is low. This allows caste to remain a persistent feature of the Indian marriage market.

Time Series Study of Rhino Habitat and its Impact on Rhino Population in Gorumara National Park through Remote Sensing Technology

Gorumara National Park located within the flood plains of Jaldhaka and Murty river in the Dooars area of Northern West Bengal has a mosaic of natural vegetation consisting of tall grasslands, woodlands, tropical semi-evergreen forests and tropical moist deciduous forests, part of which get inundated in recurring floods. The Greater Indian One Horned Rhinoceros which is the flagship specie of this National Park has positively responded to the regular Wild Life Habitat Management regime introduced since 1995 showing trends of steady increase in its population as the habitat manipulation resulted in the increase of the Rhino habitat. This review tries to establish the Rhino population dynamics vis a vis increase in Rhino habitat using Remote sensing technology over the years since the area comes under purview of Protected Area network management