Social Divisions and Access to Public Goods

This is an example of how caste heterogeneity - or just a caste system - can complicate economic development:

Our empirical analysis documents that communities that are heterogeneous in terms of caste within the majority Hindu religion are likely to have lower access to tap water than correspondingly homogeneous communities. Historical divisions created by the caste system in India may generate rivalry associated with the usage and sharing of public goods, and thereby reduce the coordination required to get the state to provide more public goods. By contrast, communities that are fragmented across religions are likely to have more access to tap water than correspondingly homogeneous communities. This may be because the risk of internal conflict due to religious divisions (a common source of violent riots in India) cause the state to send more public goods to areas fragmented by religion. 

That is from the conclusions of the draft of this article by Divya Balasubramaniam, Santanu Chatterjee, & David B. Mustard, in Economica (January 2014).  A draft (September 2012) is here. The name of the article is "Got Water? Social Divisions and Access to Public Goods in Rural India."

We should think about how to promote cohesion within societies with high degree of heterogeneity. The answer might be to build (more) trust, which is easier to say than do. 

Wikipedia has a fascinating entry of the Caste System in India. 

Identity and Performance

An interesting paper on how culture shapes behavior using caste categories in India

It is typically assumed that being hard-working or clever is a trait of the person, in the sense that it is always there, in a fixed manner. However, in an experiment with 288 high-caste and 294 low-caste students in India, cues to one's place in the caste system turned out to starkly influence the expression of these traits. The experiment allows us to discriminate between two classes of models that give different answers to the question of how someone's identity affects his behavior. Models of the fixed self assume that identity is a set of preferences. Models of the frame-dependent self assume that identity entails a set of mental models that are situationally evoked and that mediate information processing. Our findings suggest that the effect of identity on intellectual performance depends sensitively on the social setting. This perspective opens up new policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development.

That is from a paper by Karla Hoff & Priyanka Pandey. A draft is here. 

A useful explanation

Under the Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated conditions, the experimenter began a session by making public the identity of the participants, as described above (p. 13).

Women and the caste system in India

Eswaran, Ramaswami, & Wadhwa have an interesting paper in the new number of Economic Development and Cultural Change. They argue: "the ratio of women’s market work to men’s declines as we move up the caste hierarchy."

The abstract

We argue that women may be disinclined to participate in market work in the rural areas of India because of family status concerns in a culture that stigmatizes market work by married women. We set out a theoretical framework that offers predictions regarding the effects of caste-based status concerns on the time allocation of women. We then use the all-India National Sample Survey data for the year 2004-05 and the Time Use Survey for six states of India for the year 1998-99 to empirically test these hypotheses. After controlling for a host of correlates, we find that the ratio of women’s market work to men’s declines as we move up the caste hierarchy. This ratio falls as family wealth rises and the decline is steeper for the higher castes. Finally, the effect on women’s market work of higher education is weaker for the higher castes. These findings lend support to our theory and to the view that, through its emphasis on family status, caste plays a pivotal role in undermining the autonomy of women. Our paper has implications for how culture impinges on the rate at which poverty in developing countries can be reduced.

A draft is here. 

Marginal Revolution asked: "Was the Indian caste system Efficient?" 

Research tribune

The effect of education on crime (in the UK). 

The effect of crime on economic growth. 

. . . [W]hy caste remains a persistent feature of the Indian marriage market.

Impact of rising world rice prices on poverty and inequality.

Universal health care in Thailand. 

Determinants of China's Outward Direct Investment. 

HT: Maximo Rossi and Mark Lee. 

Is Caste Destiny?

It is no. At least not for the Scheduled Castes (Dalit). That is from the article "Is Caste Destiny? Occupational Diversification Among Dalits in Rural India," by Gang, Sen, and Yun. The abstract:

The caste system – a system of elaborately stratified social hierarchy – distinguishes India from most other societies. Among the most distinctive factors of the caste system is the close link between castes and occupations, especially in rural India, with Dalits or Scheduled Castes (SC) clustered in occupations that were the least well paid and most degrading in terms of manual labor. Along with the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the SCs have the highest incidence of poverty in India, with poverty rates that are much higher than the rest of the population. Since independence, the Indian government has enacted affirmative action policies in educational institutions and public sector employment for SCs and STs. In addition, there has been an emergence of political parties that are strongly pro-SC in their orientation in the more populous states of India. We use five rounds of all-India employment data from the National Sample Survey quinquennial surveys from 1983 to 2004 to assess whether these political and social changes have led to a weakening of the relationship between low caste status and occupational segregation that has existed historically in India. We find evidence that the occupational structure of the SC households is converging to that of the non-scheduled households. However, we do not find evidence of a similar occupational convergence for ST households.

I posted before on how market interactions are changing the cast system.  

How capitalism is changing the caste system in India

On his barefoot trudge to school decades ago, a young Ashok Khade passed inescapable reminders of what he was: the well from which he was not allowed to drink; the temple where he was not permitted to worship. At school, he took his place on the floor in a part of the classroom built a step lower than the rest. Untouchables like him, considered to be spiritually and physically unclean, could not be permitted to pollute their upper-caste neighbors and classmates.

But on a recent afternoon, as Mr. Khade’s chauffeur guided his shimmering silver BMW sedan onto that same street in a village in the southern state of Maharashtra, village leaders rushed to greet him. He paid his respects at the temple, which he paid to rebuild. The untouchable boy had become golden, thanks to the newest god in the Indian pantheon: money.

That is from a very interesting NYT article.