Prof. Ashok Rai (Ph.D.)
CeMIS
Email: arai@uni-goettingen.de
URL: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/personal/131280.html
Office Hours: to be announced.
Teaching assistant:
Jan Priebe (jpriebe@uni-goettingen.de; Oec-2.209; Office hours: Tuesdays 10:00 am to
12:00 am from April 15 to June 15; or arrange meetings by email).
M.MIS.301 „Economic Reform and Social Justice
in India“
Summer semester 2011
Course meetings:
May 30, 2011; 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at Cemis, Waldweg 26, Room 1.112
May 31, 2011; 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at Waldweg 26 Room ERZ 414
Tutorial time to be arranged.
Introductory Meeting:
April 14, 2011 from 9 am to 10 am at Cemis, Waldweg 26, Room 1.112
During the introductory meeting a detailed description of the course material will be
provided. At this meeting, the date and details of the tutorial with Professor Rai will also be
announced. All students must attend the tutorial. The tutorial will focus on the uses and
limitations of Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) in economic development.
Note!
Please refer to Jan Priebe for more details on the course. Students can gain credits from
this course as ‘seminar’.
Purpose
This module deals with the microeconomic development of India. The students
• are familiarised with topics related to economic development of India, such as
health, nutrition, governance, corruption.
• learn about how randomized control trials (RCTs) as a tool for understanding what
works in development and what doesn’t.
• are enabled to critically reflect upon what they have learned, orally and in writing.
Requirements: Each student will be make a 15 minute presentation in English during the
class meetings, and submit a 15-20 page term paper. The paper must be submitted by
noon on June 14 to the teaching assistant (Jan Priebe) in his office Oec-2.209. No
extensions will be permitted on this deadline.
Recommended Knowledge: Students should have had some exposure to microeconomics at
an introductory level.
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Guidelines
The first step is to read the paper carefully and do your best to understand it. If you find the
paper challenging, discuss it with classmates and try to make sense of it or see the teaching
assistant. Second, identify the question the authors are addressing and whether they do a
convincing job of answering it.
While some of the statistical analysis/econometrics may be hard for you to understand, the
main ideas and approach should be accessible. Note that you will not be responsible for the
econometric/technical details of the paper.
Some questions to guide your thinking:
What is the main question the authors are attempting to answer?
Why is the question important? Why is it difficult to answer?
What is the central hypothesis? Do they clearly explain the theoretical justification for the
hypothesis?
What data are they using? Describe them.
What is the primary empirical strategy? Why did the authors choose it?
Do you believe the strategy is reasonable?
Is the sample a random sample of the population of interest?
Do the empirics have external validity (i.e. could the conclusions drawn be applied to other
contexts)?
Are there other strengths and weaknesses of the approach? Are the authors forthcoming
about the weaknesses?
What are the main empirical findings? Do you believe them?
What conclusions do they draw from the findings? Are these conclusions justified?
How could the paper be improved?
What is the logical next step for future research?
Presentation and Paper:
Your presentation should summarize the paper and present some of your own analysis of
the paper. You may prepare a 1-2 page handout for the class which has some of the main
points of your presentation and/or a table or a figure from the paper. Please do not use
Powerpoint.
Your paper should be 15-20 pages, double spaced. Approximately half the paper should be
a summary and the other half should be your own analysis. You should try and incorporate
some of the comments made during your presentation into your final paper.
Reading List:
Note that papers 2-10 involve RCTs; the others do not.
Readings 11-15 are better suited for students who have had some exposure to
econometrics.
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Hunger
1. Deaton, Angus and Jean Drèze (2009): “Food and nutrition in India: Facts and
interpretations”. Economic and political weekly, Vol. 64 (7): 42-65.
Caloric intake has declined in India. Some argue this is due to reduced physical activity or
improvements in the health environment. Yet anthropometric indicators still indicate undernourishment in the population.
Health
2. Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2009): “Improving health care delivery in India”.
Prepared for the Festschrift Conference in honor of Angus Deaton, Princeton.
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/5172
From the abstract: "This essay brings together some recent evidence which highlights some
of the difficulties that will have to be faced by any government that is serious about
improving health-care for the poor."
3. Cohen, Jessica and Pascaline Dupas (2010): “Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence
from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment”. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol.
125(1): 1-45.
Using a field experiment in Kenya, the authors demonstrate that offering pregnant women
free insecticide-treated bed nets did not impact use. Demand, however, was highly sensitive
to increasing prices, even at subsidized cost-sharing levels.
Discrimination
4. Hanna, Rema and Leigh Linden (2009): “Measuring Discrimination in Education”. NBER
Working Papers No. 15057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge.
A study of discrimination in grading school exams - low-performing, low-caste and highperforming female students are the most disadvantaged by discrimination.
5. Hoff, Karla and Priyanka Pandey ( 2004): “Belief Systems and Durable Inequalities: An
Experimental Investigation of Indian Caste”. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No.
3351.
From the abstract: "The authors present experimental evidence that a history of social and
legal disabilities may have persistent effects on a group's earnings through its impact on
individuals' expectations."
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Governance
6. Banerjee, Abhijit, Selvan Kumar, Rohini Pande and Felix Su (2010): "Do Informed Voters
Make Better Choices? Experimental Evidence from Urban India”. Working paper:
http://www.snsindia.org/jpal_impact_evaluation.pdf
From the abstract: "Do informational deficits on the part of voters sustain poor quality of
governance in low income countries? We provide experimental evidence on the role of
public disclosures on candidate quality and incumbent performance in enhancing electoral
accountability
7. Banerjee, Abhijit, Donald Green, Jennifer Green and Rohini Pande (2009): “Can Voters be
Primed to Choose Better Legislators? Experimental Evidence from Rural India”. Working
paper: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~jlbroz/PElunch/Pahnde_05_10_pande.pdf
From the abstract: "We conducted field experiments in rural India to examine the
responsiveness of voter preferences to priming about the relevance of ethnicity and
politician quality for service delivery. We used vignette experiments to examine how voter
preferences vary with information about politician quality. We find strong evidence that
ethnic preferences are malleable."
Corruption
8. Bertrand, Marianne, Simeon Djankov, Rema Hanna and Sendhil Mullainathan (2007):
“Obtaining a Driving License in India: An Experimental Approach to Studying Corruption”.
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 122 (4): 1639-1676.
A randomized control trial investigated the relative difficulty or ease of obtaining a driver's
license in Delhi. The authors find that the license testing system suffers from corruption, in
that a financial bonus for obtaining a license outperformed actual driving skill measures.
9. Olken, Benjamin (2007): “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in
Indonesia”. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 115 (2): 200-249.
From the abstract: "This paper presents a randomized field experiment on reducing
corruption in over 600 Indonesian village road projects... Overall, the results suggest that
traditional top-down monitoring can play an important role in reducing corruption, even in a
highly corrupt environment."
Household Bargaining
10. Field, Erica, Nava Ashraf and Jean Lee (2010): “Household Bargaining and Excess
Fertility: An Experimental Study in Zambia”. Bread Working Paper No. 282.
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This paper tests the role of spousal discordance in fertility preferences in explaining low
rates of contraceptive use and high rates of unwanted births through a field experiment in
Zambia.
Information Technology
11.
Jensen, Robert (2007): "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market
Performance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector". Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 122(3): 879 − 924.
From the abstract: “Between 1997 and 2001, mobile phone service was introduced
throughout Kerala, a state in India with a large fishing industry. Using microlevel survey data,
we show that the adoption of mobile phones by fishermen and wholesalers was associated
with a dramatic reduction in price dispersion, the complete elimination of waste, and nearperfect adherence to the Law of One Price. Both consumer and producer welfare increased.”
Affirmative Action
12. Bertrand, Marianne, Rema Hanna and Sendhil Mullainathan (2009): “Affirmative Action
in Education: Evidence from Engineering College Admissions in India”. Journal of Public
Economics, Vol. 94(1-2): 16-29.
From the abstract: “This paper examines an affirmative action program for “lower-caste”
groups in engineering colleges in India. We study both the targeting properties of the
program, and its implications for labor market outcomes.”
Financial Development
13. Anagol, S. and Hugh Kim (2010): “The Impact of Shrouded Fees: Evidence from a Natural
Experiment”. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1660988
From the abstract: “We study a natural experiment in the Indian mutual funds sector that
created a 22 month period in which closed-end funds were allowed to charge an arguably
shrouded amortized fee whereas open-end funds were forced to charge standard entry
loads.”
14. Cole, Shawn A. (2009): "Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Elections, Banks
and Agricultural Lending in India". American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1
(1): 21‐50.
From the abstract: “This paper integrates theories of political budget cycles with theories of
tactical electoral redistribution to test for political capture in a novel way.”
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15. Khwaja, Asim and Atif Mian (2005): "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent
Provision in an Emerging Financial Market". Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 120 (4):
1371-1411.
From the abstract: “Classifying a firm as “political” if its director participates in an election,
we examine the extent, nature, and economic costs of political rent provision. We find that
political firms borrow 45 percent more and have 50 percent higher default rates. Such
preferential treatment occurs exclusively in government banks—private banks provide no
political favors.”
16. Liberti, José and Atif Mian (2010): “Collateral Spread and Financial Development”.
The Journal of Finance, Vol. 65(1): 147-177.
From the abstract: “We show that institutions that promote financial development ease
borrowing constraints by lowering the collateral spread and shifting the composition of
acceptable collateral towards firm-specific assets.”
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