Globalization, Reform and the Informal Sector

informal sector, reformatory policies, production organization

Religious fragmentation, social identity and cooperation: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India

We study the role of village-level religious fragmentation on intra- and inter-group cooperation in India. We report on data on two-player prisoners׳ dilemma and stag hunt experiments played by 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in rural India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of village-level religious heterogeneity. In religiously heterogeneous villages, cooperation rates in the prisoners׳ dilemma, and to a lesser extent the stag hunt game, are higher when subjects of either religion play with a fellow in-group member than when they play with an out-group member or with someone whose identity is unknown. Interestingly, cooperation rates among people of the same religion are significantly lower in homogeneous villages than in fragmented villages in both games.We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the ESRC Grant ES/J018643/1

Religious fragmentation, social identity and other-regarding preferences: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordWe examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on other-regarding preferences. We report on a series of two-player binary Dictator experiments conducted on a sample of 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in rural West Bengal, India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of religious fragmentation in the village where subjects reside. Both Muslims’ and Hindus’ aversion to advantageous inequality declines as the probability of facing an out-group member increases. We find no evidence of aversion to disadvantageous inequality on either religious sample. Both Muslim and Hindu participants display aversion to advantageous inequality in both fragmented villages and homogeneous villages. The effect of village fragmentation on aversion to disadvantageous inequality differs across religious groups.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Foreign Capital Inflow, Skilled-Unskilled Wage Inequality and Unemployment of Unskilled Labour in a Fair Wage Model

This paper has developed a three-sector general equilibrium framework that explains unemployment of both skilled and unskilled labour. Unemployment of unskilled labour is of the Harris-Todaro (1970) type while unemployment of skilled labour is caused due to the validity of the FWH in the high-skill sector. There are two types of capital one of which is specific to the primary export sector while the other moves freely among the different sectors. Inflows of foreign capital of either type unambiguously improve the economic conditions of the unskilled working class. However, the effects on the skilled-unskilled wage inequality and the extent of unemployment of both types of labour crucially hinge on the properties implied by the efficiency function of the skilled workers

Uncertain R&D Outcomes and Cooperation in R&D

The present paper provides a brief survey of some of the papers dealing with R&D uncertainty. This helps us identify which factors are more favorable for cooperative R&D and which factors are not. The paper provides the analysis under a unified framework. We take the classic paper by Marjit (1991) as the benchmark case, and then proceeds to examine whether, or to what extent, Marjit result will undergo a change with respect to different assumptions related to R&D investment