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 in the relationship between poverty and reservation, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India that arises from national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which the revised reservations are implemented due to the timing of state elections. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-1992, 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.affirmative action, poverty, minorities, India

A Distributional Analysis of the 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.quantile regression, public-private wage differential, India

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 program's effectiveness. Overall, the findings provide the strongest empirical evidence to date that the means-tested school lunch subsidies increase children's consumption over a time period longer than one school day.National School Lunch Program, Dietary Patterns, Means-Tested Subsidies

Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India

This paper examines the effect of a federally-mandated public sector employment quota policy for minorities on their occupational choice. We utilize multiple logit models to estimate the effect of the policy on the choice between a high, middle, or low-skill public sector occupation during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings are, first, the policy has a significant effect on the choice of occupation for both groups. The policy increases the probability of the scheduled caste group choosing high-skill occupations and decreases the probability of choosing middle-skill occupations. In contrast, the policy decreases the probability of the scheduled tribe group choosing high-skill occupations and increases their probability of choosing low-skill occupations. Second, the influence of the policy is interrelated with an individual's years of schooling. Third, we find evidence of employment quota externalities in that a policy targeted at one group affects the occupational choice of the other group. Overall, the results suggest that federally-mandated employment quotas do change occupational choice for the target disadvantaged groups and contribute to their improved socio-economic standing.Occupational choice, Skill, Caste, India

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 individual's 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.skill, affirmative action, employment quota, occupational choice, caste, India

Consumption and Social Identity: Evidence from India

We examine spending on consumption items which have signaling value in social interactions across groups with distinctive social identities in India, where social identities are defined by caste and religious affiliations. The classification of such items was done by eliciting responses to a survey in India. We match the results of our survey with nationally representative micro data on household consumption expenditures. We find that disadvantaged caste groups such as Other Backward Castes spend nine percent more on visible consumption than Brahmin and High Caste groups while social groups such as Muslims spend eleven percent less, after controlling for differences in permanent income and demographic composition of households. These differences are significant and robust. Additionally, we find that these differences can be partly explained as a result of the status signaling nature of such consumption items.households, consumption, India

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. It is widely believed that there are sizable economic returns to English-language skills in India, but the extent of these returns is unknown due to lack of a microdata set containing measures of both earnings and English ability. In this paper, we use a newly available data set - the India Human Development Survey, 2005 to quantify the effects of English- speaking ability on wages. We find that being fluent in English (compared to not speaking any English) increases hourly wages of men by 34%, which is as much as the return to completing secondary school and half as much as the return to completing a Bachelor's degree. Being able to speak a little English significantly increases male hourly wages 13%. There is considerable heterogeneity in returns to English. 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 earn a premium for English skill, whereas older workers across all education groups do.English Language, Human Capital, India

Master of Science

thesisLarge Deformation Di eomorphic Metric Mapping is a powerful technique which has been used to quantify variations in anatomical structures in medical images. This allows us to compare various images within and across a populations of classes using the underlying deformation eld which maps each image with the representative images of the class. The deformation eld can be described by a low-dimensional control point parameterization. We investigate the potential of this low-dimensional parameterization in classi cation and study the e ect of the underlying classi er parameters on the classi cation accuracy

Communication Network Analysis to Compare BIM and Non-BIM Approaches in the AEC Industry

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been established as standard in the Architecture Engineering & Construction (AEC) industry. The ubiquity of the platform has significantly changed the way AEC industry works. BIM is finding its utility in almost every aspect of the AEC industry. Thus, with such significant level of adoption, the industry is undergoing a significant change adoption process. The introduction of a new Information Technology (IT) platform that has significantly changed the workflow has significant far-reaching impacts. This research aims to study the impact of usage of BIM in the AEC industry on the communication network. The network created based on real-world information is used to perform Social Network Analysis (SNA). The research presents a process to extract real-world information and classify the collected data through text clustering to create project wise networks. Analyzed in this manner, BIM and Non-BIM projects are compared based on network properties to identify the impact of usage of BIM on communication networks. The research found that there is a difference in network properties for BIM and non-BIM projects based on collected real-world data. The properties indicate that the communication network for BIM projects are relatively better in comparison to non-BIM projects. The research identifies the utility of such real-time social network analysis in project management at an executive level