Education spillovers in farm productivity: empirical evidence in rural India

Empirical evidence of education spillovers in developing countries and rural contexts is scarce and focuses on specific channels. This paper provides evidence of such spillovers in rural India, by evaluating the overall impact of education of neighbors on farm productivity. We use cross-sectional data from the India Human Development Survey of 2005. Spatial econometric tools are used to take into account social distance between neighbors. To be sure that our definition of the neighborhood does not drive our results, we test three different definitions of neighbors. Our results show that education spillovers are substantial: one additional year in the mean level of education of neighbors increases households' farm productivity by 3%. These findings are robust to changes in specification and open the way to further research. In particular, the paper does not explore the channels through which this spillover effect happens. This paper confirms the choice of improving education in developing countries: giving a child education will certainly provide him greater revenues but it may also provide his neighbors greater revenues. It also shows the importance for policy makers of taking into account education spillovers and policies' complementarity when facing political trade-offs. This paper is one of the few to underline that education externalities do not only exist in urban contexts and that education spillovers do not only occur between workers of the manufacturing and service sectors. There are also spillovers in sectors considered as more traditional such as agriculture. --Education externalities,Rural India,Farm productivity

Changis-sur-Marne – Les Pétreaux

La 6e phase de fouille (1998) du site situé dans l’emprise de la Carrière Morillon-Corvol de Changis-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne) s’est déroulée sur environ 2,6 ha, et, comme à l’accoutumée, en anticipation des travaux d’extraction de la carrière dont le front de taille se déplace perpendiculairement à la Marne, du nord vers le sud-est (fig. 1). On rappellera que l’occupation humaine de Changis-sur-Marne « les Pétreaux » appartient à la longue durée puisque 15 ha de la nappe alluviale déjà foui..

A case-only study to identify genetic modifiers of breast cancer risk for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers

Breast cancer (BC) risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers varies by genetic and familial factors. About 50 common variants have been shown to modify BC risk for mutation carriers. All but three, were identified in general population studies. Other mutation carrier-specific susceptibility variants may exist but studies of mutation carriers have so far been underpowered. We conduct a novel case-only genome-wide association study comparing genotype frequencies between 60,212 general population BC cases and 13,007 cases with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. We identify robust novel associations for 2 variants with BC for BRCA1 and 3 for BRCA2 mutation carriers, P < 10−8, at 5 loci, which are not associated with risk in the general population. They include rs60882887 at 11p11.2 where MADD, SP11 and EIF1, genes previously implicated in BC biology, are predicted as potential targets. These findings will contribute towards customising BC polygenic risk scores for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Quel rôle joue les autres? : Une analyse empirique de l'interaction entre capital social et capital humain en Inde

There is nothing controversial in saying that hum an capital matters a great deal for economic development. Research during the past 50 years has confirmed this belief, and governments, international organizations and NGOs have worked hard to improve human capital indicators. But the majority of policy makers and researchers have considered and studied human capital as an issue only concerning individuals. However, human capital also has a social component which has not yet been well understood, despite a growing literature looking beyond the individual aspect of human capital. The aim of this dissertation is to shed some light on this social component of hum an capital. The recurrent question that I am asking throughout this thesis is "How do others matter?", in relation to hum an capital. In particular, I am wondering how social capital interacts with human capital. To study this question, I take India as a case study. India is a country where human capital has dramatically changed in the last 50 years, and social capital had an important role in this evolution. More concretely, India's peculiar social structure pro vides a very interesting context to study the relation between human capital and social capital.Dire que le capital humain a un impact important sur le développement économique n'est pas une affirmation très controversée. Elle a été confirmée par la recherche des cinquante dernières années et améliorer les indicateurs de capital humain dans les pays en développement est depuis quelques temps déjà un des objectifs principaux des gouvernements, des ONG et des organisations internationales. Cependant, le capital humain est souvent seulement considéré comme une question individuelle. Pourtant, le capital humain comporte une dimension sociale encore relativement peu analysée. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'apporter un éclairage sur cet aspect social du capital humain. La question que je pose tout au long de cette thèse est «Quelle est l'importance des autres? »par rapport au capital humain. En particulier, je me demande comment capital social et capital humain interagissent, et les éléments de réponse que j'apporte reposent sur des données indiennes. L'Inde est un pays où il est particulièrement intéressant d'étudier cette question, car le capital humain y a beaucoup évolué dans les cinquante dernières années, et le capital social a joué un rôle important dans cette évolution. Le contexte social indien, propose aussi un cadre d'analyse riche pour l'étude de la relation entre capital humain et capital social

Applying for social programs in India : roles of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action

India has among the most extensive affirmative action programs in the world. Depending on the State, up to 50% of jobs in the public sector are reserved for members of low castes. However, recruitment is highly discretionary, making it hard for low castes without connections to access reserved jobs and thereby benefit from affirmative action. This paper studies how having a local elected leader from the same caste affects the probability of applying for reserved jobs. The identification strategy focuses on the political reservation system at the village level that determines the caste group of the local elected leader. Taking data from three States in South India, I find that households are more likely to apply when the local elected leader is from their caste group. The evidence suggests that the impact is driven by updated beliefs regarding the probability of a successful application

Education spillovers in farm productivity : revisiting the evidence

This paper exploits the social organization of India to revisit the question of education spillovers in farm productivity. The fact that social interactions mainly occur within castes in rural India provides tools to show that the observed correlation between farm productivity and neighbors' education is likely to be a spillover effect. In particular, there are no cross-caste and no cross-occupation effects, which underlines that, under specific assumptions, which are stated and explored in the paper, the education of neighbors does not capture the effect of group unobservables. This evidence is complemented by separate estimations by crops, which show results that are consistent with education spillovers. The strategy used in this paper helps understand and interpret previous findings from the literature

Experimental Evidence on Affirmative Action

Although beliefs about the effect of affirmative action are widespread, behavioral responses to affirmative actions (from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries) cannot easily be understood without experimental evidence. In this chapter I review the findings from the experimental literature on two key questions: can affirmative action increase representation without harming efficiency? Are affirmative action beneficiaries penalized by others? The findings highlight that beneficiaries respond to affirmative action as it changes their probability of participating in competitions and it changes their effort level. But the efficiency cost of affirmative action to the society, if any, is small, as affirmative action enhances the participation of highly performing individuals, who would have not participated otherwise. Moreover, beneficiaries do not suffer from backlash from non-beneficiaries. The negative societal impact of affirmative action is therefore likely to be limited

Education Spillovers: Empirical Evidence in Rural India

ED EPSInternational audienceEmpirical evidence of education spillovers in developing countries and rural contexts is scarce and focuses on specific channels. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of such spillovers in rural India, by evaluating the overall impact of neighbours' education on farm productivity. The author uses cross-sectional data from the India Human Development Survey of 2005. Spatial econometric tools are used to take into account social distance between neighbours. To be sure that the author's definition of a neighbourhood does not drive the results, three different definitions of neighbours were tested. The results show that education spillovers are substantial: one additional year in the mean level of education of neighbours increases households' farm productivity by 2 per cent. These findings are robust to changes in specification

Distribution of human capital and income: an empirical study on Indian States

Recently, an emphasis has been put on education as a key determinant for economic development. But when increasing the mean level of education of their population, developing countries face a trade-off: should they focus on increasing the level of already educated children or try to put more children into school and diminish illiteracy rates? In other words, should countries favor a more unequal or a more equal distribution of human capital? This paper empirically explores this question by analyzing the relation between distribution of education and income per capita with panel data from 29 Indian States. Using two different measures of the distribution of education and dealing with the high correlation between the mean education level and its distribution, this paper provides evidence that there is a negative relation between equality of education and income per capita. This result is robust to the use of the system GMM estimator. However, the relation is non-linear and depends on the level of development. This paper also gives a first insight into the channels which are at stake and shows that several mechanisms explain the impact of the distribution of education