Browsing by Author "Das, Shreyasee"
Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item ESSAYS ON ANTI-OPEN GRAZING LAWS IN NIGERIA(2023-05-10) Mashrur, Md Abdullah Al; Chin, Aimee; Friedman, Willa H.; Ujhelyi, Gergely; Das, ShreyaseeWeather events associated with climate change – global warming, floods and others – are economically costly and are getting more common with time. It is important to know effective adaptive measures for these problems. In Africa, herder-farmer conflict is a growing problem linked to climate change. Herders seasonally move to places for the sustenance of their animals. They usually feed the animals crop residues on farmlands after the final crop harvest. However, violent conflicts often occur with the farmers when the herders are forced to graze animals on farmlands prior to the harvest. Ekiti is one of several states in Nigeria to adopt anti-open grazing law in 2016 that bans open grazing and promotes ranching. In my dissertation, I provide some of first empirical evidence on the effects of Ekiti’s anti-open grazing law. In Chapter 1, I examine the effect of Ekiti’s law on conflict in Ekiti and its neighboring state Ondo. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and ACLED conflict event data, I find that the law reduces conflict in Ekiti after two years of its passage. This may have happened because the law weakened the property rights of land for the herders and strengthened the farmers. I find a similar but insignificant effect of the law in Ondo state. Among the types of conflict, the law reduces violent conflicts in the state of Ekiti in a similar manner to all conflicts. It shows that the law succeeded in reducing herder-farmer conflicts which are generally violent in nature. A decrease in conflicts can in turn raise household incomes and reduce food insecurity. At the same time, the law may have heterogeneous impacts across groups: the weakening of herders’ property rights may increase food insecurity for them, particularly in the short run. In Chapter 2, using a difference-in-differences strategy and multiple waves of the Nigeria General Household Survey, I find that Ekiti’s anti-open grazing law increased household food insecurity in Ekiti and its neighboring state Ondo. This finding suggests that the reduction in conflicts achieved by anti-open grazing law came at the cost of increased food insecurity for some groups.Item Essays on Identity and Social Interactions(2020-05) Bhattacharya, Shreya; Friedman, Willa H.; Chin, Aimee; Ujhelyi, Gergely; Das, ShreyaseeThis dissertation consists of two studies on identity based social interactions in India. The first study uses a slum relocation program in India that randomly assigned neighbors to examine the effects of exposure to other caste neighbors on trust and attitudes towards members of other castes. Combining administrative data on housing assignment with original survey data on attitudes, I find evidence corroborating the contact hypothesis. Exposure to more neighbors of other castes increases inter caste trust, support for inter caste marriage, and the belief that caste injustice is growing. I explore the role of friendships in facilitating these favorable attitudes. The results throw light on the positive effects of exposure to diverse social groups through close proximity in neighborhoods. The second study examines the effect of a technological intervention in agriculture, the Green Revolution, on Hindu Muslim conflict in India between 1957 and 1985. I exploit variation in take-up of the Green Revolution technologies generated by the suitability of agricultural areas in districts to apply the technologies to identify the causal impact of technology on conflict. I find that riots are longer after the Green Revolution is introduced. I find suggestive evidence of an increase in the occurrence and severity of religious conflict. I explore the role of mechanization in agriculture introduced by the Green Revolution in reducing the opportunity cost of engaging in conflict. My findings shed light on the unintended consequences of technology in agriculture as well as the mechanisms through which such technology may influence ethnic conflict.Item Essays on Migration and Labor Markets(2020-08) Peru Durayalage, Dhanushka Arunasiri; Friedman, Willa H.; Chin, Aimee; Juhn, Chinhui; Das, ShreyaseeThe dissertation consists of two studies on labor migration restrictions and wage inequality trends in Sri Lanka. The first study investigates how government restrictions on women’s labor migration affect women’s fertility decisions in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government introduced a policy in 2013 prohibiting women from migrating for work based on their age and the age of their youngest child. These restrictions could alter fertility decisions, with women simultaneously choosing between future employment and childbearing. Using a panel dataset created from the Demographic and Health Survey in a regression discontinuity in time framework, I find that women from poor households, who are most likely to migrate, change their fertility behavior. Young women, who are already restricted from migrating based on their own age increase their fertility. Older women, who are restricted from migrating only if they have young children, reduce their fertility. As a result, new mothers are less-educated and younger, which may have an impact on child outcomes. My findings contribute to the literature on migration policies in developing countries and trade-offs between women’s employment and fertility decisions. The second study explores the wage inequality trend in Sri Lanka. Stylized facts suggest that wage inequality in Sri Lanka has increased over the 1996-2006 period, followed by a significant decrease from 2006 to 2014. Using Labor Force Survey data and a supply and demand framework, I find that an increase in the relative supply of high skilled workers alone does not explain the differential trends in wage inequality. There is a significant shift in factor demand for high skilled workers in both periods, which is countered by a higher increase in relative supply from 2006-2014, contributing to the overall decrease in wage inequality. I also find evidence for occupational upgrade among low skill workers in the later period, which could explain the higher relative wage gains of that group in the 2006-2014 period.Item Essays on Social Policy and Preferences for Redistribution(2018-05) Vu, Max Ngoc; Chin, Aimee; Ujhelyi, Gergely; Juhn, Chinhui; Das, ShreyaseeThis dissertation is composed of two essays. The first chapter "The Impact of Government Programs on Individual Preferences for Redistribution: Evidence from SCHIP/Medicaid expansion" investigates the effects of government's transfer programs on individual's preferences for redistribution. Using the restricted file of the General Social Survey from 1996 to 2014, I study the impact of a large public insurance program targeting children on their parents' support for government's redistribution. To account for the endogeneity of program eligibility, I adopt an instrumental variable approach that exploits state-level variation in children's age groups and income thresholds for program eligibility to simulate individual household's exposure to the policy. I find strong evidence suggesting that having a child eligible for the program has a positive and significant impact on parents' support for redistribution, by around 25% of the variable's standard deviation. It is possibly mediated through the channel of increasing individual's trust in the government. The result is robust to alternate specifications and different measures of support for redistribution. The second chapter "The Effects of Relative Income on Preferences for Redistribution" investigates whether individuals' position on the income distribution, i.e their relative income, affects their preferences for redistribution. Specifically, using cross-state variations from the US General Social Survey (GSS), augmented with cross-country variations from the World Values Survey (WVS), I examine whether the individuals' preferences for redistribution change once they become relatively rich compared to their peers. Controlling for the level of income, I look at the effects of peer group's relative income, using the practice of measuring individual preferences for redistribution from the literature. Consistent with previous studies, I find relative income to have an effect on individual's happiness. I also find evidence that relative income affect individual's attitudes towards income inequality and support for redistribution. An increase in individuals' relative income results in less support for redistributive policies: those with higher income compared to their peer group are less favorable of government reducing income differences, less in support of government aid and less in favor of other redistributive policies. The results are consistent using both data from the US and other countries, and robust to different fuctional forms, and measures of relative income.Item Essays on the Effects of Education Policy and Tax Policy on Labor Market and Other Outcomes(2018-05) Nguyen, Tung; Chin, Aimee; Juhn, Chinhui; Craig, Steven Gael; Das, ShreyaseeThis dissertation is composed of three essays. First chapter. The Impact of Bilingual Education on Economic and Social Assimilation: Evidence from California’s Proposition 227. Bilingual education is one of the main educational programs schools in the U.S. use to help limited English proficient students, yet very little evidence exists about the causal impacts of bilingual education on adulthood outcomes. I use a triple-differences strategy, in which I compare the outcomes of foreign-born Hispanics to US-born Hispanics who attended elementary school before and after the policy change in California, and address the potential issue of differential cohort trend between foreign-born and US-born using Hispanics from Texas. This paper exploits the 1998 ban on bilingual education in California to identify the causal impact of exposure to bilingual education on the social and labor market outcomes of young adults. Second chapter. The Impact of Bilingual Education on Long-run Outcomes: Evidence from Arizona’s Proposition 203. In this chapter, I investigate the causal impact of exposure to bilingual education on different outcomes of young adults exploiting the ban on bilingual education in Arizona resulting from a voter referendum in 2000. Third chapter. The Effects of Marginal Tax Rate on Self-employment Entry. This chapter investigates the effects of marginal tax rates on the decision to become self-employed.Item Social Safety Net Programs and Household Behavior(2019-05) Banerjee, Aritri; Chin, Aimee; Friedman, Willa H.; Juhn, Chinhui; Das, ShreyaseeThis dissertation consists of two essays analyzing the effect of social safety net programs on beneficiary behavior in India. The first paper uses data from the National Sample Survey, a nationally representative survey of Indian households, to study the impact of expanding government food aid on child labor and school attendance. Beginning 2001, the Indian state of Chhattisgarh implemented reforms to the traditional public distribution system (PDS) that purchased foodgrain staples from farmers at a minimum support price and distributed it to poor families at subsidized prices. The first major reform expanded the number of retail stores selling subsidized foodgrains. The second major reform shifted government procurement of rice from out-of-state farmers to local farmers. I find that these reforms significantly increased paid work among older boys aged 12-17 years in Chhattisgarh. These effects are primarily driven by boys belonging to socially disadvantaged groups, living in rural areas and who are legally permitted to work as per the child labor ban law. For young boys aged 5-11 years, I find an increase in schooling and much smaller increases in paid employment. I do not find a significant impact on the schooling and paid employment of young or older girls. These findings are consistent with PDS reforms increasing family resources as well as labor market opportunities, with the latter having a greater impact on older boys such that the net effect is an increase in paid employment for them. The second paper evaluates the effect on savings-consumption behavior of beneficiary households due to the introduction of a nationwide health insurance program named Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) in 2008 that provided free hospital insurance to the poor population. I use two rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative survey in India. Using a difference-in-differences strategy based on the phased roll-out of the program across different districts and the panel structure of the data, I estimate the intention to treat effects for the eligible population. I find that the program increased RSBY take-up by 8 percentage points among the eligible population. I do not find statistically significant effect of RSBY on consumption, savings, income or asset holdings of the beneficiary households.Item THE EFFECT OF STATE LAWS MANDATING ADVANCED PLACEMENT PROGRAMS IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS ON EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES: EVIDENCE FROM ARKANSAS(2014-05) Arce-Trigatti, Maria Paula; Chin, Aimee; Craig, Steven Gael; Juhn, Chinhui; Das, ShreyaseeThis dissertation consists of two essays on the impact of state-mandated Advanced Placement (AP) programs in public high schools on student outcomes. In the first essay, I examine the effects of a 2004 state-mandate in Arkansas on student achievement (measured by test scores), high school graduation and dropout rates, and student composition within a school. In the second essay, using the same policy, I study the effects of the mandate on college enrollment measures, as well as high school completion. The first essay examines the effect of a state mandate to offer Advanced Placement (AP) programs at all public high schools on student outcomes. Requiring schools to offer a program they may otherwise not have offered could produce unintended consequences through the shifting of resources or re-sorting among students. To investigate these possibilities, I take advantage of a 2004 state-wide mandate to offer AP programs in Arkansas and use a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to identify the effects of the policy on graduation and attendance rates, student achievement measures, and student composition within a school. Results suggest that on average, the 4-year graduation rate increases by 3.3 percentage points and the dropout rate increases by nearly one percentage point at schools required to comply with the mandate. I find no effect on student achievement (measured by end-of-course exams and ACT scores) attributable to the mandate, however. Additionally, the share of students choosing to attend an out-of-district school increases by almost two percentage points and the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch decreases by more than three percentage points, which suggests that the policy may have important sorting effects. In the second essay, I build on the work from the previous chapter of this thesis by examining the impact of state-mandated Advanced Placement (AP) programs on college enrollment and high school graduation rates. By extending the analysis to college-going, we can gain a better understanding of how increased rigor in the high school curriculum can affect college matriculation, which itself has important implications for later labor market outcomes. Furthermore, corroborating the estimates on high school completion from the previous work will contribute to the scant existing literature on the causal impact of AP program participation. I use a triple differences estimation strategy that exploits exogenous variation in AP program exposure generated by the 2004 mandate in Arkansas to identify the causal impact of the reform on student outcomes. While robust standard errors suggest the results are statistically insignificant, the point estimates are indicative of positive impacts on the rate of high school completion for nearly all gender and racial sub-groups of students analyzed, and mixed impacts on measures of college attendance by race and gender. I find positive impacts on ever having enrolled in college for females (negative for males) and positive impacts on currently enrolled in college for non-Hispanic white students (negative for non-Hispanic black students).Item The Effects of Women's Employment on Intimate Partner Violence in West Africa(2021-05) Kabore, Jean; Friedman, Willa H.; Liu, Elaine M.; Juhn, Chinhui; Das, ShreyaseeMy dissertation consists of two studies on how women's employment opportunities and education affect their experiences of domestic violence in West Africa. The first chapter explores how a severe environmental condition such as the Harmattan dust pollution, which disproportionately reduces women's employment in West Africa, affects intimate partner violence. I find that one standard deviation above the mean of dust pollution exposure significantly decreases women's employment by 7 percentage points. Conditional on having been employed, they are 8.2 percentage points less likely to work away from their homes. The results also show that more exposure to dust pollution leads to a significant increase in women's experiences and acceptance of intimate partner violence. A further exploration of the channels indicates that dust pollution exposure significantly decreases women's ability to pay a substantial portion of family expenses and make decisions within the household, but increases time spent at home and time spent with their partners which leads to more exposure. The second chapter takes advantage of a differential exposure across birth cohorts of Nigeria's universal primary educational policy to study the causal effects of a plausibly exogenous increase in women's and men's educational attainment on the prevalence of domestic violence. I find that the policy significantly increased women's educational attainment and decreased their experiences of emotional and severe domestic violence. Exploring the mechanisms, I find that the increase in women's education led to a significant increase in their household decision making power and impacted the formation of their marriages which may have reduced their exposure to potential abusive partners. The policy also increased men's education and their spouses are significantly less likely to experience severe domestic violence such as kicking, strangling, or threats with a weapon. A further investigation of the channels suggests that these relatively more educated men also marry more educated women and have more household wealth, all of which can lead to a decrease in domestic violence.Item WATER RIGHTS AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM INDIA(2012-05) Das, Shreyasee; Chin, Aimee; Imberman, Scott A.; Vollrath, Dietrich; Prakash, NishithThere is growing concern in the world to better manage water resources in order to sustain increased water demands. This heightened demand can be most importantly attributed to a rapid population growth and heightened development measures in the world. One way this has been tackled since centuries is by allocating water amongst the riparian parties. This dissertation examines a specific sector where water allocations are particularly vital, namely that of agriculture. I focus my analyses on two important basins in India, and attempt to estimate the causal effects of water allocations on agricultural productivity. In my first chapter, I specifically look at the 1976 Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal that reallocated the rights of three Indian states (Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) over the Krishna River in the South of India. I exploit district-time variation in access to water to obtain causal effects of water reallocation on crop output and yield. I find that on average, the decision reduces district output by 7.7 percent and yield by 5.5 percent. I also find suggestive evidence that the decision amplified the reduction in productivity during drought periods; total production experiences an 8 percent decline and yield drops by 7.4 percent (however, the estimates are not statistically significant). The weak negative net effects of the decision are comprised of productivity gains for the most downstream state, Andhra Pradesh, that are more than offset by the productivity losses for the upstream states Maharashtra and Karnataka. The negative impacts for Maharashtra, which are especially pronounced during periods of drought, are significant at conventional levels of significance.Thus, the 1976 reallocation of state rights over water from the Krishna Basin was redistributive and weakly reduced overall efficiency. To assess if the same results are present in other basins, I look at the Cauvery Basin, also in the South of India, in my second chapter. I evaluate the effects of the 1991 Interim Order by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal on agricultural productivity in the riparian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by implementing a difference-in-differences strategy. On average, the decision does not significantly affect agricultural productivity. However, I find that output declines significantly during drought periods; total production falls by 24 percent (significant at the 5 percent level of significance) and yield reduces by 14.5 percent. I vary my analyses by states to investigate as to who bears incidence of the decision. Surprisingly, I find that both states experience losses during drought periods, but Tamil Nadu’s losses are much higher than that of Karnataka’s. The estimation results suggest an efficiency loss in the region and that the harmful effects of drought are amplified after the decision.