Essays in Development Economics
Open AccessThis dissertation consists of three independent essays that empirically investigate topics in development economics. Chapter 1 examines the role played by social movements in addressing under-reporting of violence against women (VAW). Chapter 2 evaluates the impact of alcohol prohibition on crime incidence. Chapter 3 studies the interactions between monetary and non-monetary poverty, with the goal of improving poverty targeting. Chapters 1 and 2 provide evidence from India, and Chapter 3 yields estimates from Ethiopia. In Chapter 1, I investigate whether an increase in public activism against VAW can encourage reporting of socially sensitive crimes such as rape and sexual assault. The study investigates the effect of a social movement - a series of protests and demonstrations - that erupted after a 23-year-old girl was violently gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. Using a difference-in-difference strategy that exploits regional variation in exposure to this social movement, I find that regions that were more exposed witnessed a sharp increase in reported VAW. Further, I show that the estimated increase could be attributed to a rise in reporting of VAW, rather than an increase in occurrence. Using new, self-compiled micro-data on more than 300,000 crime incidents, I find a measurable decline in reporting-lag (i.e. number of days elapsed between day of crime occurrence and day of crime reporting) among cases of VAW, after the 2012-incident. These findings demonstrate that public activism can influence disclosure norms and improve reporting.In Chapter 2, co-authored with Aaditya Dar, we investigate the effect of an alcohol prohibition policy - recently legislated in the Indian state of Bihar - on crime. Using a difference-in-difference approach - exploiting cross-district variation in pre-ban share of drinking population - we find that the ban is associated with a significant increase in crimes, including crimes such as rape and kidnapping. Considering that alcohol regulation could affect crime in more than one way, we examine a gamut of mechanisms and find that the rise in crime is likely driven by diversion of police resources - away from crime-prevention - towards implementing the ban.In Chapter 3, co-authored with Diana Ngo, we explore commonalties and mismatches between monetary and non-monetary poverty, and examine how these interactions can affect poverty targeting. In particular, we study the incidence, dynamics and correspondence of five key types of poverty: (i) consumption poverty, (ii) multidimensional poverty, (iii) health poverty, (iv) education poverty, and (v) living standards poverty, in a static as well as a chronic setting. We find meaningful overlap among these measures, which can be used to improve poverty targeting. We also find substantial overlap between covariates of different types of poverty, suggesting that policymakers can focus on a few key characteristics to identify people who are deprived in multiple domains for varying periods of time.
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