Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Impact Of Demand For H1b Visas In The Us On The Performance Of Listed Indian Firms, Jayaditya Shekhar Maliye

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Indian firm performance and the demand for H1B visas in the US. To test this relationship, a fixed effects model has been used on a panel dataset of 104 Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) over the period 2009 to 2021. The results show that an increase in H1B visa demand is negatively and significantly associated with Indian firm performance. These findings suggest that the US’s demand for high skilled labor overseas has consequences for firms in the home country.

The Sri Lanka-China-India Triangle: A Regional Power Transition, Nandeeni Patel

CMC Senior Theses

In 2016, China became the largest importer of Sri Lanka goods and services, surpassing India. Since then, the Chinese government has signed significant trade, development, and security deals with the island nation. This thesis argues that Sri Lanka's domestic politics, centered around its decades-long civil war and consequent human rights concerns, have served as the crux of its triangular relations with two regional powers: India and China. The human rights issue, in tandem with Sri Lanka's agency as a small state, has drawn Sri Lanka to China. The China-Sri Lanka relationship and has now expanded to developing security and development …

Trickle Down Nationalism: Interactions Between Liberal Nationalism And Colonialism In The Raj And Nigeria, Aaryaman Sheoran

CMC Senior Theses

The combination of nationalism and colonialism has remained understudied in academia, despite the important interaction between the two phenomena. European ideas bled over into their colonial empires and began to fill the power vacuum created by colonial enterprises. This study analyzes the impact of British colonialism on the development of national identity in British India and Nigeria.

British influences included large scale economic disruption, cultural reform through ‘westernizing’ the population and abolishing local customs, and creating a new set of institutions to replace traditional power centers. Inevitably, these factors created a nationalist surge across both the Raj and Nigeria, as …

A Comparative Analysis To Understand The Subnational Motivations For Renewable Energy Development In India, William Cullen

CMC Senior Theses

Providing energy security and diversifying the energy production in India align with the country’s rising power ambitions and policy goals to industrialize. Renewable energy provides a useful tool for the state to meet these policy goals without producing more air pollution and additional environmental degradation. The Central Government has international ambitions of with becoming a rising responsible power; these aspirations have created new resources, incentives, and policy ideas for the subnational states in India. The purpose of this thesis is to map out the motivations, interests, and incentives of subnational elites in devising policies to promote renewable energy development in …

Reaching The Unreached: The Role Of Information Communication Technologies On Agency Of Women In India, Suvena Yerneni

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, I analyze the impact of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) on female empowerment in India. In defining female empowerment, I consider the three dimensions of agency: social autonomy, economic autonomy, and mobility. Using nationally-representative data of 2012 from the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS), I find that these information communication technologies, measured by ownership and use, have positive and significant impacts on female agency and decision-making abilities. I extend my analysis to two types of media: computers and mobile phones. These results persist even after accounting for the effects of education, income, and age of women.

Human Development And Subnationalism: A Disaggregated Analysis Of Indian States: Kerala And Uttar Pradesh, Manika Garg

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates achievements in human development outcomes on health, education, and poverty indicators across Indian states, in order to discern what factors might influence a state’s better orientation toward social policies. After conducting data analysis, the study explains differences in outcomes, as achieved by Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, by building an argument of subnational solidarity and its impact on determining the state’s policy agendas.

The “Modi Effect”: Investigating The Effect Of Demonetization On Currency Demand And The Size Of The Underground Economy In India, Sanjana Sankaran

CMC Senior Theses

Demonetization is an economic tool used to reduce the size of an underground economy. Though studies on the effectiveness of demonetization have increased over the past 50 years, there is little literature on the ineffectiveness of demonetization and subsequent factors that could explain a lack of change, or an increase, in illegal activity. This paper examines past cases of demonetization to determine the effectiveness of demonetization, and investigates the incentive for foreign currency substitution as a mechanism for criminals to circumvent regulatory scrutiny. Major findings of this paper include a positive but statistically insignificant correlation between demonetization and growth in …

Realizing The Right To Education: An Evaluation Of Education Policy In Six States Of India, Isabella Burch

CMC Senior Theses

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act is India’s most recent national-level policy in pursuit of universalizing elementary education. While some states have been successful at increasing the number of students who attend school, reducing dropout rates, and reducing the rates of out of school children, others are still struggling to make progress. The states that are successful are surprising in some instances because they are not particularly wealthy, they have large rural populations, and some face larger socio-political issues. This thesis finds that the states succeeding in meeting RTE goals are not always the states that …

Incongruent Premodern And Modern Beauty Ideals: A Case Study Of South Korea And India's Reconciliation Of Current Beauty Trends With Foundational Religious Ideals, Minger Bropleh

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis is an in-depth analysis of beauty ideals in South Korea and India. These two countries have recently turned to skin lightening and cosmetic surgery in order to achieve their new beauty standards. Not only do these two countries share a propensity for those two trends, but they also have an overwhelming majority of the population that identifies with a specific religion; Hinduism in the case of India and Confucianism in the case of South Korea. However, it is not clear that the current beauty ideal in each country aligns with the beauty ideal set out in the respective …

The Residential Real-Estate Industry In India: Investigating Evidence For An Asset Bubble, Nikhita Narendran

CMC Senior Theses

The objective of this thesis is to examine the differences in residential property prices across different cities in India. Soaring prices have led to increasingly unaffordable property prices in large metropolitan cities. As a result, there has been academic discourse about the existence of a housing bubble in recent years. In the past, empirical research has focused on national level trends due to a lack of city-level data. I investigate the city-fixed effects on growth in house prices across fifteen different cities. Although different empirical models suggest different conclusions about these effects, point estimates suggest above-normal growth in house prices …

India: Subsidy State Or Developmental State?, Annie Jalota

CMC Senior Theses

India does not fit easily into existing models of thought on the nature of a state and defies ease of understanding. Though India is most often considered to be a subsidy state, I show in this thesis the notion of the subsidy state does not capture the true nature of the Indian state. Chapter two of the paper looks at various models of understanding the nature of the Indian state and draw out three essential features: competing interest groups, how economic liberalization facilitates corruption and works against India’s aim of equalizing the capabilities and freedoms of all its citizens, and …

The Impact Of Participatory Notes On The Indian Rupee Exchange Rate, Rohan Kothari

CMC Senior Theses

Since 1992, India has grown as a global player in the finance world. In spite of its success, India has not been able to rid itself of potentially harmful practices. One such practice is the issuing of Participatory Notes (PN) to foreign investors, so that they can anonymously purchase securities or derivatives listed on the Indian Stock Exchanges. This instrument came into public view when it accounted for approximately 50% of all foreign portfolio assets in India. Since then, the laws regarding PNs have evolved to become a more transparent version of the old rules. Although PN levels are not …

Performance Of The Indian Banking Industry Over The Last Ten Years, Saumya Lohia

CMC Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the performance of Indian banks over the period of the last ten years. It uses the CAMEL Framework to determine the performance of public and private banks in India. The paper also conducts an empirical analysis to determine the share price performance of Indian banks relative to the share price performance of banks in Hong Kong, Europe and the US. This paper finds that private banks perform better than public banks overall based on the CAMEL Framework. In addition it also finds that the Indian banks share price performance is dependent on the share price performance of …

The Great Indian Growth Puzzle: What Caused A Spike In 2003?, Aditya Bindal

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will employ unit root tests for finding structural breaks endogenously among India’s key macroeconomic aggregate series, as well as their components and subcomponents. The same analysis will be repeated, wherever data are available, for states. The results from these unit root tests will then be used in regression models for national and state level data to understand the causes behind structural breaks. We find that breakpoints cluster around 1982 and 2003 for most series at the national and state level. The services component appears to be a promising candidate for explaining the 2003 structural break in some of …

Advancement Of The Adivasis: The Effect Of Development On The Culture Of The Adivasis, Jantrania Akta

CMC Senior Theses

Laws and policies have created a legal context aimed at allowing the adivasis to develop socioeconomically while retaining the aspects of their culture that they value the most. While the adivasis still face numerous challenges, it is evident that many have achieved successful economical advancement as a result of the legal framework established upon independence in 1947. Yet, it has also been acknowledged that economic advancement can undermine aspects of culture that are essential to the identity and dignity of the adivasis. Such a loss can result from exogenous factors such as government policy and the actions and beliefs of …