Declining Clientelism of Welfare Benefits? Targeting and Political Competition based Evidence from an Indian State

It has been argued that since 2014, under the BJP-led central government, welfare benefits in India have become better targeted and less prone to clientelistic control by state and local governments. Arguably this has helped to increase the vote share of the BJP vis-a-vis regional parties. We test these hypotheses using longitudinal data from 3500 rural households in the state of West Bengal. We fail to find evidence that the new “central” programs introduced after 2014 were better targeted than traditional “state” programs, or that the targeting of state programs improved after 2014. Households receiving the new “central” benefits introduced since 2014 were more likely to switch their political support to the BJP. However, changes in the scale, composition or targeting of these programs, in clientelistic effectiveness of traditional state programs or in household incomes, fail to account for the large observed increase in the voters’ support for the BJP. Non-Hindus, especially recent immigrant nonHindus, were much less likely to switch support to the BJP, even after controlling for benefits received and changes in household incomes. Our results suggest that ideology and identity politics were more important factors explaining the rising popularity of the BJP

Decentralized Targeting of Agricultural Credit Programs: Private versus Political Intermediaries

We conduct a field experiment in India comparing two ways of delegating selection of microcredit clients among smallholder farmers to local intermediaries: a private trader (TRAIL), versus a local-government appointee (GRAIL). Selected beneficiaries in both schemes were equally likely to take up and repay loans, and experienced similar increases in borrowing and farm output. However farm profits increased and unit costs of production decreased significantly only in TRAIL. While there is some evidence of superior selection by ability and landholding in TRAIL, the results are mainly driven by greater reduction of unit production costs for TRAIL treated farmers than GRAIL treated farmers of similar ability or landholding. We develop and test a model where the TRAIL agents’ role as middlemen in the agricultural supply chain enabled and motivated them to offer treated farmers business advice, which helped them lower unit costs

Decentralized Targeting of Agricultural Credit Programs: Private versus Political Intermediaries

We compare two different methods of appointing a local commission agent as an intermediary for a credit program. In the Trader-Agent Intermediated Lending Scheme (TRAIL), the agent was a randomly selected established private trader, while in the Gram Panchayat-Agent Intermediated-Lending Scheme (GRAIL), he was randomly chosen from nominations by the elected village council. More TRAIL loans were taken up, but repayment rates were similar, and TRAIL loans had larger average impacts on borrowers’ farm incomes. The majority of this difference in impacts is due to differences in treatment effects conditional on farmer productivity, rather than differences in borrower selection patterns. The findings can be explained by a model where TRAIL agents increased their middleman profits by helping more able treated borrowers reduce their unit costs and increase output. In contrast, for political reasons GRAIL agents monitored the less able treated borrowers and reduced their default risk

Unintended consequences of rewards for student attendance: Results from a field experiment in Indian classrooms

In an experiment in non-formal schools in Indian slums, a reward scheme for attending a target number of school days increased average attendance when the scheme was in place, but had heterogeneous effects after it was removed. Among students with high baseline attendance, the incentive had no effect on attendance after it was discontinued, and test scores were unaffected. Among students with low baseline attendance, the incentive lowered post-incentive attendance, and test scores decreased. For these students, the incentive was also associated with lower interest in school material and lower optimism and confidence about their ability. This suggests incentives might have unintended long-term consequences for the very students they are designed to help the most

Efficient hydrogen storage in up-scale metal hydride tanks as possible metal hydride compression agents equipped with aluminium extended surfaces

In the current work, a three-dimensional computational study regarding coupled heat and mass transfer during both the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation process in upscale cylindrical metal hydride reactors is presented, analysed and optimized. Three different heat management scenarios were examined at the degree to which they provide improved system performance. The three scenarios were: 1) plain embedded cooling/heating tubes, 2) transverse finned tubes and 3) longitudinal finned tubes. A detailed optimization study was presented leading to the selection of the optimized geometries. In addition, two different types of hydrides, LaNi5 and an AB2-type intermetallic were studied as possible candidate materials for using as the first stage alloys in a two-stage metal hydride hydrogen compression system. As extracted from the above results, it is clear that the case of using a vessel equipped with 16 longitudinal finned tubes is the most efficient way to enhance the hydrogenation kinetics when using both LaNi5 and the AB2-alloy as the hydride agents. When using LaNi5 as the operating hydride the case of the vessel equipped with 60 embedded cooling tubes presents the same kinetic behaviour with the case of the vessel equipped with 12 longitudinal finned tubes, so in that way, by using extended surfaces to enhance the heat exchange can reduce the total number of tubes from 60 to 12. For the case of using the AB2-type material as the operating hydride the performance of the extended surfaces is more dominant and effective compared to the case of using the embedded tubes, especially for the case of the longitudinal extended surfaces

Do Women Receive Worse Financial Advice? An Audit Study in Hong Kong, China

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local securities. Female clients who signaled that they were highly confident, highly risk tolerant, or had a domestic outlook, were especially likely to receive suboptimal advice. Our theoretical model explains these patterns as the result of statistical discrimination interacting with advisors’ incentives. Taste-based discrimination is unlikely to explain the results

Do Women Receive Worse Financial Advice?

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local securities. Women clients who signaled that they were highly confident, highly risk tolerant or had a domestic outlook, were especially likely to receive this suboptimal advice. Our theoretical model explains these patterns as the result of statistical discrimination interacting with advisors’ incentives. Taste-based discrimination is unlikely to explain the results

The Bio-Politics of Population Control and Sex Selective Abortion in China and India

China and India, two countries with skewed sex ratios in favor of males, have introduced a wide range of policies over the past few decades to prevent couples from deselecting daughters, including criminalizing sex-selective abortion through legal jurisdiction. This article aims to analyze how such policies are situated within the bio-politics of population control and how some of the outcomes reflect each government’s inadequacy in addressing the social dynamics around abortion decision making and the social, physical, and psychological effects on women’s wellbeing in the face of criminalization of sex-selective abortion. The analysis finds that overall, the criminalization of sex selection has not been successful in these two countries. Further, the broader economic, social, and cultural dynamics which produce bias against females must be a part of the strategy to combat sex selection, rather than a narrow criminalization of abortion which endangers women’s access to safe reproductive health services and their social, physical, and psychological wellbeing

Sex Ratio at Birth in India, Its Relation to Birth Order, Sex of Previous Children and Use of Indigenous Medicine

Objective: Sex-ratio at birth in families with previous girls is worse than those with a boy. Our aim was to prospectively study in a large maternal and child unit sex-ratio against previous birth sex and use of traditional medicines for sex selection. Main Outcome Measures: Sex-ratio among mothers in families with a previous girl and in those with a previous boy, prevalence of indigenous medicine use and sex-ratio in those using medicines for sex selection. Results: Overall there were 806 girls to 1000 boys. The sex-ratio was 720:1000 if there was one previous girl and 178:1000 if there were two previous girls. In second children of families with a previous boy 1017 girls were born per 1000 boys. Sexratio in those with one previous girl, who were taking traditional medicines for sex selection, was 928:1000. Conclusion: Evidence from the second children clearly shows the sex-ratio is being manipulated by human interventions. More mothers with previous girls tend to use traditional medicines for sex selection, in their subsequent pregnancies. Those taking such medication do not seem to be helped according to expectations. They seem to rely on this method and so are less likely use more definitive methods like sex selective abortions. This is the first such prospective investigation of sex ratio in second children looked at against the sex of previous children. More studies are needed to confirm the findings