Birds of a feather flock together? Diversity and spread of COVID-19 cases in India

Arresting COVID infections requires community collective action that is difficult to achieve in a socially and economically diverse setting. Using district level data from India, we examine the effects of caste and religious fragmentation along with economic inequality on the growth rate of reported cases. The findings indicate positive effects of caste homogeneity while observing limited impact of economic inequality and religious homogeneity. However, the gains from higher caste homogeneity are seen to erode with the unlocking procedure after the nationwide lockdown. We find that community cohesion through caste effect is relatively dominant in rural areas even when mobility restrictions are withdrawn. Our findings indicate planners should prioritize public health interventions in caste-wise heterogeneous areas to compensate for the absence of community cohesion. The importance of our study lies in empirically validating the causal pathway between homogeneity and infection and providing a basis for zoning infection prone areas

Estimating workers' bargaining power and firms' Markup in India: Implications of reforms and labour regulations

We examine implications of industrial deregulations, trade liberalisation and labour regulations on workers' bargaining power and firms' markup in Indian manufacturing industries, using state-wise three-digit industry-level panel data for the period 1980-2007. Results of our econometric analysis suggest that both industrial deregulations and trade liberalisation led to significant declines in workers' bargaining power, which was already less than 6.7% on an average during pre-reform era. However, none of these reforms appears to have any significant effect on firms' markup. Our results also suggest that amendments to labour regulation by State governments, which aim to simplify procedures and reduce costs of industrial dispute resolutions, have a significant positive effect on workers' bargaining power. Surprisingly, amendments to Employment Protection Legislations do not appear to have any significant effect on workers' bargaining power. We also document considerable variation in firms' markup and workers' bargaining power across industry-groups and States

On willingness to pay for Covid-19 vaccines: a case study from India

In this paper, using survey data from 1251 respondents from peri-urban parts in the Bhopal district of India, we estimated the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for hypothetical Covid-19 vaccines. We use open-ended questions along with the discrete choice contingent valuation method for two vaccines, one with full efficacy and the other with 70% efficacy. While no major evidence of vaccine hesitancy was observed, we found a WTP of about Rs. 141 ($1.9) for the former type vaccine and about Rs. 116 ($1.6) for the latter. From the contingent valuation method, we found about 71.9% were not willing to spend Rs. 200 ($2.7) or more for the fully effective vaccine, while this figure goes up to 77.8% for the one with 70% efficacy. Estimations from linear and probit regressions suggest that economic indicators were the most important predictors of WTP. Usage of public transport, the number of days that the respondent stepped out for work, and the presence of comorbid individuals in the household were positively associated with the WTP, while pandemic-induced income reduction was negatively correlated. The findings lend support toward the requirement of highly subsidized vaccines, and hence back the recent policy announcement toward the supply of free vaccines to all states

Are High-Altitude Residents More Susceptible to Covid-19 in India? Findings and Potential Implications for Research and Policy

In this paper, we study the incidence of COVID-19 and the associated fatality with altitude using high frequency, district level data from India. To understand the implications of the nationwide lockdown after the outbreak, we use data for about four months- two from the lockdown period starting from March 25 till May 31, 2020 and about two months after unlocking was initiated (June 1-July 26, 2020). The multivariate regression result indicates slower growth in average rate of infection during the lockdown period in hilly regions, the gains of which attenuated after the unlocking was initiated. Despite these early gains, the rate of fatalities is significantly higher during the lockdown period in comparison to the plains. The findings remain robust to multiple alternative specifications and methods including one that accounts for confounding possibilities via unobservable and provides consistent estimates of bias adjusted treatment effects. The evidence supports the need for provisioning of public health services and infrastructure upgradation, especially maintenance of adequate stock of life support devices, in high altitude regions. It also underscores the necessity for strengthening and revising the existing Hill Areas Development Programme and integrating important aspects of public health as part of this policy

Can social safety nets protect public health? The effect of India’s workfare and foodgrain subsidy programmes on anaemia

Can large-scale social safety nets be nutrition sensitive even if they do not explicitly incorporate health and nutrition as programmatic goals? This paper focuses on the consequences of a countrywide guaranteed workfare programme (MGNREGA) and subsidised food distribution scheme (PDS) in India for the prevalence of anaemia, examining whether individuals in districts with a broader reach of these mega-programmes are less likely to be anaemic. Using an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach to address the endogeneity of programme scale, we find that an individual residing in a district where the programmes have broader reach is less likely to suffer from all forms of anaemia and has a lower haemoglobin deficit from the benchmark suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO) – ranging between 0.91 to 6.2 percentage points for a 10 percentage point expansion in programme scale. While the PDS seems to be more effective in reducing the incidence of mild anaemia than moderate or severe anaemia, while the strength of effects for MGNREGA seem to be the least for mild. These are catch-all effects that represent partial and general equilibrium impacts through multiple pathways. Programme interaction effects suggest the MGNREGA and PDS may be substitutes – associated improvements in anaemia for regions with higher PDS access (MGNREGA participation) are more pronounced when the scale of MGNREGA participation (PDS access) is low. There exist nonlinearities in these relationships, with the efficacy of both programmes varying across scales of implementation