5 March 2013: Intellectual Property, Competition Law, and Economic Development - What Balance Works for Developing Countries?

Eleanor Fox
New York University School of Law

Abstract:
All over the world, a “war” has erupted between advocates of strong intellectual property protection and advocates of strong competition law that would trump IP rights and bring more and cheaper medicines, smart phones and tablets to the market. These battles are playing out in commissions and courts in the European Union and the United States. The presentation will explain the patent/antitrust wars and how they are playing out, and will address the question – what principles and perspective will best serve developing countries?

Date: March 5, 2013
Time: 03:00 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics,
Delhi School of Economics,
New Delhi-110007(INDIA)

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1 March 2013: Can Institutions be Reformed from Within? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment with the Rajasthan Police

Esther Duflo
MIT

Abstract:
Institutions in developing countries, particularly those inherited from the colonial period, are often thought to be subject to strong inertia. This study presents the results of a unique randomized trial testing whether these institutions can be reformed through incremental administrative change. The police department of the state of Rajasthan, India collaborated with researchers at US and Indian universities to design and implement four interventions to improve police performance and the public's perception of the police in 162 police stations (covering over one-fifth of the State's police stations and personnel): (1) placing community observers in police stations; (2) a freeze on transfers of police staff; (3) in -•service training to update skills; and (4) weekly duty rotation with a guaranteed day off per week. These reforms were evaluated using data collected through two rounds of surveys including police interviews, decoy visits to police stations, and a large-scale public opinion and crime victimization survey, the first of its kind in India. The results illustrate that two of the reform interventions, the freeze on transfers and the training, improved police effectiveness and public and crime victims' satisfaction. The decoy visits also led to an improvement in police performance. The other reforms showed no robust effects. This may be due to constraints on local implementation: the three successful interventions did not require the sustained cooperation of the communities or the local authorities (the station heads) and they were robustly implemented throughout the project. In contrast, the two unsuccessful interventions, which required local implementation, were not systematically implemented.

Date: March 1, 2013
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Auditorium Hall
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

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28 February 2013: Common Tongue: The Impact of Language on Educational Outcomes

Tarun Jain
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

Abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of official language policies on educational outcomes using state formation in India. Colonial-era province formation led to the assignment of some districts where the district’s language was the same as the official language of the province and some where it was not. The difference in educational achievement is large between these two areas. Linguistically mismatched districts have 18.8% lower literacy rates and 27.6% lower college graduation rates in post-colonial census. The paper uses the 1956 reorganization of Indian states on linguistic lines as a natural experiment to estimate the impact of changing the official language on educational outcomes. Historically mismatched districts experience greater growth in educational achievement after reorganization relative to districts that spoke the official language before 1956. These results suggest that political reorganisation can mitigate the impact of mismatched language policies.

Date: February 28, 2013
Time: 03:00 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics,
Delhi School of Economics,
New Delhi-110007(INDIA)

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26 February 2013: Decoding China’s Urban Dilemmas

Geeta Kochhar
Jawaharlal Nehru University

Abstract:
China presents a unique model of urbanization, whereby the actual extent of urban population is rising, without the grant of urban status to many such residents. While a debate over residency issue is underway, it is pertinent to understand China’s overall urbanization policy and the reasons behind the enhanced figures of urban population. The paper unfolds the path of China’s urbanization process and highlights the challenges the state will face in future. An attempt is made to decode the legal issues due to which China is able to project itself as “Cities without slums”. The paper makes a preliminary comparison of Delhi’s villages with Guangzhou’s “villages in cities” (Chengzhongcun), which puts forth the future urban challenges for the Chinese authorities. The paper is based on the premise that increased mobility will result in u nplanned expansion of cities, which will amplify demand for social equality and destruction of old institutional barriers that erected walls for social exclusion.

Date: February 26, 2013
Time: 03:45 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall
Centre for Policy Research,
Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi–110021(INDIA)

Note:
For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org

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22 February 2013: Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labour Force Participation Rate in Urban India During India's Economic Boom

Stephan Klasen
University of Gottingen

Abstract:
We examine drivers of female labor force participation in urban India between 1987 and 2009, asking to what degree India’s economic boom has drawn women into the labor force and whether social and economic barriers to female participation have fallen. Although participation rates in urban India have remained low throughout this period, we do find evidence that the effects of households’ socio-economic class have declined over time, especially among highly educated women. There is, however, a conditional U-shaped relationship between women’s own education and labor force participation, with a large drop in the positive effect of higher education. This may be a result of the expansion of higher education in India, associated with an increase in the scarcity of white-collar jobs and a decline in positive selection of women into higher education.

Date: February 22, 2013
Time: 03:00 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics,
Delhi School of Economics,
New Delhi-110007(INDIA)

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14 February 2013: Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?

Sumit Agarwal
National University of Singapore

Abstract:
Yes, it did. We use exogenous variation in banks’ incentives to conform to the standards of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) around regulatory exam dates to trace out the effect of the CRA on lending activity. Our empirical strategy compares lending behavior of banks undergoing CRA exams within a given census tract in a given month to the behavior of banks operating in the same census tract-month that do not face these exams. We find that adherence to the act led to riskier lending by banks: in the six quarters surrounding the CRA exams lending is elevated on average by about 5 percent every quarter and loans in these quarters default by about 15 percent more often. These patterns are accentuated in CRA-eligible census tracts and are concentrated among large banks. The effects are strongest during the time period when the market for private securitization was booming.

Date: February 14, 2013
Time: 03:00 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics,
Delhi School of Economics,
New Delhi-110007(INDIA)

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14 February 2013: Shame or Subsidy: What Explains the Impact of India’s Total Sanitation Campaign?

Sumeet Patil
NEERMAN (Network for Engineering, Economics, Research, and Management), Mumbai

Abstract:
A recent study shows that social pressure and peer monitoring have a greater impact on changing sanitation behaviour of people than subsidies.

A randomized social mobilization campaign was undertaken in the state of Orissa, India, to evaluate and measure sanitation outcomes in terms of child health and household welfare. The campaign increased households’ ownership of sanitary latrines by about 24% overall – and 31% in poorer households that received subsidy as compared to 19% in households that did not receive a subsidy.

The increase in toilet coverage and use did not lead to statistically significant reductions in self-reported diarrhoea, but significant improvements in children’s nutritional status was noted. Switching from open defecation to latrine use also saved substantial amounts of time and increased satisfaction in sanitation conditions.

Mr Patil will discuss the dynamics of shame and subsidy and their relative impacts on improving sanitation in India.

Date: February 14, 2013
Time: 03:30 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room
ISID Complex, Plot No. 4
Vasant Kunj Institutional Area
New Delhi- 110 070(INDIA)

Note:
Please confirm your participation to Ms Bindu Joy (bjoy@3ieimpact.org)

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15 February 2013: The effect of metro rail on air pollution in Delhi

Deepti Goel
Delhi School of Economics

Abstract:
In this paper we investigate the effect of the Delhi Metro, an intra-city mass rail transit system, on air pollution within Delhi. To identify effects on pollution, we exploit the discontinuous jumps in metro ridership, each time the network is extended. Our identifying assumption is that in the absence of the extension there would be a smooth transition in pollution levels. We find strong evidence to show that the Delhi Metro has resulted in reductions of two important vehicular emissions, namely, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. We estimate a cumulative impact of a 35 percent reduction in CO levels for the region around ITO (a major traffic intersection in Delhi). This is suggestive of a traffic diversion effect, where people are switching from private modes of travel to the Delhi Metro. Given, documented evidence on the adverse health effects of air pollution, our findings suggest that these indirect benefits must be considered in any cost-benefit analysis of a rapid mass transport system.

Date: February 15, 2013
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room 2
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

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8 February 2013: Impact of Indian Employment Guarantee program on casual wages: Are the existing estimates causal?

Kanika Mahajan
ISI, Delhi

Abstract:
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India (NREGA) has generated a lot of interest among the researchers to measure its impact on labor market outcomes. A few papers in this literature use the differences-in-differences (DID) strategy exploiting the phase wise implementation of the program across districts in India to identify its impact on private sector casual wages. This identification strategy rests on the assumption that all districts across India had similar time trends in the absence of the program. We argue that this assumption may not be true due to non-random allocation of districts to phases. We extend the existing literature in two ways. First, we consider cultivation and non-cultivation private sector wage and employment separately. Secondly, we allow for statetime- trends to capture the differences in growth trajectories across districts due to parent-state changing characteristics over time. The results, contrary to the existing studies, do not find support for a significant positive effect of NREGA on private casual wages due to crowding out of private sector employment.

Date: February 8, 2013
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room 2
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

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7 February 2013: Can Panchayats Make Services Work for Poor People in Rural India?

Hari Nagarajan
NCAER

Abstract:
Large segments of the rural Indian population, particularly those who are poor, still cannot effectively access public services for water, education and health. This problem is both one of difficult access as well as that of ineffective provision. For some time, attempts have been underway to enable Panchayats,India’s rural local government bodies enabled by the 73rd amendment to the Constitution, to more effectively provide and manage these services. While the conceptual case for more effective service provision through local government remains strong, the judgment is still out on whether Panchayats are in fact able to deliver services, particularly to poor people.

Using a unique, large-scale rural panel data set at NCAER (the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey) this pioneering work explores service provision by Panchayats through the lens of the outcomes in health, education, and infrastructure that should accompany the effective provision of such services. For example, if Panchayats are able to provide drinking water effectively, how does that affect household economic outcomes? Do increases in Panchayat expenditures on health reduce the need for private expenditures by households? If institutions like Village Education Committees (ordained by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) are active in villages, do Panchayat schools perform more effectively? Does the individual and political empowerment of women through reservations in Panchayat leadership lead to better health outcomes? Does the improved provision of water have significant labor market implications—especially for women?  Is it the quality of school management or the availability of additional resources that seem to be more important for the performance of Panchayat schools?

Date: February 7, 2013
Time: 04:00 P.M.

Venue:
NCAER Conference Room
National Council of Applied Economic Research
Parisila Bhawan, 11, Indraprastha Estate
New Delhi-110002(INDIA)

Note:
Please join us for tea after the seminar. For queries, please contact Ms Sudesh Bala at sbala@ncaer.org or on 011-2345-2669.

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