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Full-Text Articles in Labor Economics
English Skills Raise Wages For Some, Not All, In India, Nishith Prakash, Aimee Chin, Mehtabul Azam
English Skills Raise Wages For Some, Not All, In India, Nishith Prakash, Aimee Chin, Mehtabul Azam
Nishith Prakash
Does it pay to speak English? This column presents evidence from India that being fluent in English increases the hourly wages of men by 34% and of women by 22%. But the effects vary. Returns are higher for older and more educated workers and lower for less educated, younger workers, suggesting that English is becoming a complement to education.
Indian? Want To Prosper? Learn English, Aimee Chin, Nishith Prakash, Mehtabul Azam
Indian? Want To Prosper? Learn English, Aimee Chin, Nishith Prakash, Mehtabul Azam
Nishith Prakash
No abstract provided.
A Distributional Analysis Of Public Private Wage Differential In India, Mehtabul Azam, Nishith Prakash
A Distributional Analysis Of Public Private Wage Differential In India, Mehtabul Azam, Nishith Prakash
Nishith Prakash
We investigate the public-private wage differential in India using nationally representative micro data. While the existing literature focuses on average wage differential, we study the differences in the wage distributions. The raw wage differential between public and private sector is positive across the entire distribution for both genders irrespective of area of residence. A quantile regression based decomposition analysis reveals that the differences in observed characteristics (covariate effect) account for only a small part of the wage differential at lower quantiles, but a larger part at higher quantiles. At the very top of the distribution, covariate effects account for a …
The Returns To English-Language Skills In India, Mehtabul Azam, Aimee Chin, Nishith Prakash
The Returns To English-Language Skills In India, Mehtabul Azam, Aimee Chin, Nishith Prakash
Nishith Prakash
No abstract provided.
The Redistributive Effects Of Political Reservation For Minorities: Evidence From India, Nishith Prakash, Aimee Chin
The Redistributive Effects Of Political Reservation For Minorities: Evidence From India, Nishith Prakash, Aimee Chin
Nishith Prakash
We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India generated by national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which revised reservations are implemented. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-2000, we find that increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes significantly reduces poverty while increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes has no impact on poverty. Political reservation …
The Impact Of Employment Quotas On The Economic Lives Of Disadvantaged Minorities In India, Nishith Prakash
The Impact Of Employment Quotas On The Economic Lives Of Disadvantaged Minorities In India, Nishith Prakash
Nishith Prakash
Using nationally representative household data from India, I estimate the effects of the world’s biggest and arguably most aggressive employment-based affirmative action policy for minorities on their labor market and children’s outcomes. In India, public sector jobs are set aside for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs), the two principal disadvantaged minority groups in India. To identify the causal effect of these job reservations, I take advantage of the fact that the share of jobs set aside is based on a strict policy rule stipulated by the Indian Constitution. The policy rule requires that the shares of public sector …
Do Means-Tested School Lunch Subsidies Change Children's Weekly Consumption Patterns?, Nishith Prakash, Larry Howard
Do Means-Tested School Lunch Subsidies Change Children's Weekly Consumption Patterns?, Nishith Prakash, Larry Howard
Nishith Prakash
This article examines whether participation in the means-tested component of the National School Lunch Program changes the dietary patterns of children. Endogeneity bias arising from the incentive effects of lunch subsidies on program take-up is addressed using an identification trategy that relies on variation across school districts in the financing of and demand for school meal programs. Analyzing data on 5th grade public elementary school children observed in spring 2004, we find significant changes in the weekly consumption patterns of subsidized children relative to children that do not receive a means-test subsidy. Our estimates indicate increases in consumption for items …
Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment From India, Larry Howard, Nishith Prakash
Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment From India, Larry Howard, Nishith Prakash
Nishith Prakash
This paper examines the effect of a federally-mandated public sector employment quota policy for minorities on their occupational choice. We utilize multiple logit models to estimate the effect of the policy on the choice between a high, middle, or low-skill public sector occupation during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings are, first, the policy has a significant effect on the choice of occupation for both groups. The policy increases the probability of the scheduled caste group choosing high-skill occupations and decreases the probability of choosing middle-skill occupations. In contrast, the policy decreases the probability of the scheduled tribe group …