Papers by deepak singhania
Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; S... more Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; Singhania, Deepak | Abstract: In 2015, after a decade-long conflict and nine years of negotiation, Nepal promulgated a constitution that replaced its 240-year-old monarchy by a federal republic. The subsequent 2017 local elections ushered more than 30,000 first-time politicians into office. Using a census of 3.68 million Nepalis (2.56 million of whom are of voting age) covering eleven districts, party nomination lists and party candidate selection committee surveys, electoral data and information on conflict incidence, we document that castes that were historically excluded from political representation achieved representation without a significant representation-ability trade-off: improved social representation among politicians is accompanied by positive selection on education and income. Triangulating across multiple data sources, we show that the entry of the revolutionary Maoist grou...
PLOS ONE
Background Modeling studies estimated severe impacts of potential service delivery disruptions du... more Background Modeling studies estimated severe impacts of potential service delivery disruptions due to COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and child nutrition outcomes. Although anecdotal evidence exists on disruptions, little is known about the actual state of service delivery at scale. We studied disruptions and restorations, challenges and adaptations in health and nutrition service delivery by frontline workers (FLWs) in India during COVID-19 in 2020. Methods We conducted phone surveys with 5500 FLWs (among them 3118 Anganwadi Workers) in seven states between August–October 2020, asking about service delivery during April 2020 (T1) and in August-October (T2), and analyzed changes between T1 and T2. We also analyzed health systems administrative data from 704 districts on disruptions and restoration of services between pre-pandemic (December 2019, T0), T1 and T2. Results In April 2020 (T1), village centers, fixed day events, child growth monitoring, and immunization were provided by <...
International journal of aging and society, 2012
Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; S... more Author(s): Bhusal, Bhishma; Callen, Michael; Gulzar, Saad; Pande, Rohini; Prillaman, Soledad A; Singhania, Deepak | Abstract: In 2015, after a decade-long conflict and nine years of negotiation, Nepal promulgated a constitution that replaced its 240-year-old monarchy by a federal republic. The subsequent 2017 local elections ushered more than 30,000 first-time politicians into office. Using a census of 3.68 million Nepalis (2.56 million of whom are of voting age) covering eleven districts, party nomination lists and party candidate selection committee surveys, electoral data and information on conflict incidence, we document that castes that were historically excluded from political representation achieved representation without a significant representation-ability trade-off: improved social representation among politicians is accompanied by positive selection on education and income. Triangulating across multiple data sources, we show that the entry of the revolutionary Maoist grou...
In this paper, I differentiate between partial and full decentralization by comparing Indonesian ... more In this paper, I differentiate between partial and full decentralization by comparing Indonesian districts treated with only administrative or political decentralization against those treated with both. I argue that the contention regarding the effect of decentralization on public goods provision stems from insufficiently disentangling partial from full decentralization. Using an Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, I show that use of a näıve specification, that considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their complementarities, leads to omitted variable bias. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts treated with both types of decentralization, i.e. full decentralization, display significantly greater provision of public goods compared to those that experienced partial decentralization in the form of only political or administrative decentralization...
Comparisons of levels of poverty across contexts and circumstances overlook the composition and c... more Comparisons of levels of poverty across contexts and circumstances overlook the composition and characteristics of the domain of non-poor. But implications of poverty in terms of compromised welfare as well as its potential for alleviation do depend on the structure and composition of the non-poor. On this premise, this note empirically illustrates a contrast between the levels and burden of poverty for Indian states. It finds that burden of poverty is not linear with levels of poverty implying that similar levels of poverty have differential potential for its alleviation.
Decentralization of power has brought sweeping changes to governance systems of many developing c... more Decentralization of power has brought sweeping changes to governance systems of many developing countries over the past few decades. During 1997-2007 the World Bank has given $22 billion to its client countries to facilitate this process. However, the empirical evidence on the eects of decentralization on welfare outcomes has been both limited and ambiguous. Additionally, empirical comparison of dierent types of decentralization { namely administrative, political and scal { is missing. In this paper, I analyze
This paper focuses on the causal effect of occupational transitions on consumption changes and po... more This paper focuses on the causal effect of occupational transitions on consumption changes and poverty. Recent research has pointed out that sectoral transitions from the agricultural to the nonagricultural sector could be a successful pathway out of poverty due to higher productivity in the non-agricultural sector. But these studies face several limitations, such as the use of cross sectional or short panel data. We address some of these gaps and introduce two novel ways of defining sectoral transitions. Each of these definitions is used to exploit a fixed effects and an instrumental variable strategy with long run panel data on Indonesian households. Under both strategies we find that consumption growth is conditional on initial economic status and the nature of the transition—the growth was relatively higher only for those households who were either poor and agricultural in the baseline, or non-poor and non-agricultural. In terms of poverty, we find longer non-agricultural employ...
Decentralization has dramatically altered governance in developing countries. However, the empiri... more Decentralization has dramatically altered governance in developing countries. However, the empirical evidence on its welfare effects has been limited and ambiguous. I argue that this ambiguity is due to a misidentification of different types of decentralization – namely administrative, political and fiscal – and their synergies. In order to test this claim, the paper employs a unique Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy with village level fixed effects. I show that use of a näıve specification that only considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their synergies leads to an omitted variable bias problem. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts that have both types of decentralization display significantly greater welfare improvements compared to those that face only political or administrative decentralization or no decentralization at all. I also pr...
Current Developments in Nutrition
Objectives Modeling studies have estimated impacts of potential service delivery disruptions due ... more Objectives Modeling studies have estimated impacts of potential service delivery disruptions due to COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and child nutrition outcomes, but little is known about actual delivery status. We studied disruptions and restorations of health and nutrition services by frontline workers (FLWs) in India during COVID-19. Methods We conducted phone surveys with 5500 FLWs in seven states between August–October 2020, asking about service delivery during April 2020 (T1) and in the August-October period (T2) and analyzed changes between T1 and T2. We also analyzed publicly available administrative data (AD) from 704 districts including the pre-pandemic period (T0) to examine disruptions and restoration of services. Results Phone surveys suggest, in T1, opening of village centers, fixed day events, growth monitoring, and immunization services was <50% in several states. In T2, restorations of center-based services were seen, with increases of >33% in >= 3 states. Fo...
Journal of Development Economics
This paper provides an impact evaluation of the Programa Nacional de Crédito Fundiário, a market ... more This paper provides an impact evaluation of the Programa Nacional de Crédito Fundiário, a market assisted land reform program in Brazil. The paper uses a panel dataset and pipeline control group to evaluate the program's impact on agricultural production and earned income, using a difference in differences model with either municipal or individual fixed effects. The heterogeneous effect of additional years of land ownership is investigated. The findings suggest that the program increases production and earned income by about 75% and 35%, but only after four years of land ownership. The conclusions are supported by a number of robustness tests, although considerable attrition and potential bias due to unobserved variables suggests caution. The benefits of the program largely go to making debt payments. If the impact on income continues to grow, as it did in the first five years, improvements in net wealth and current welfare could both be achieved.
Author(s): Singhania, Deepak | Advisor(s): Helfand, Steven | Abstract: Decentralization has drama... more Author(s): Singhania, Deepak | Advisor(s): Helfand, Steven | Abstract: Decentralization has dramatically altered governance in developing countries. However, the empirical evidence regarding its effects on the provision of public goods has been limited and ambiguous. In the first chapter I argue that this ambiguity stems from insufficiently disentangling partial from full decentralization. I differentiate between these two types by comparing administrative decentralization, political decentralization, and their complementarities in Indonesia. The paper employs a unique Indonesian panel of village level outcomes and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy with village level fixed effects. I show that use of a naive specification that only considers political or administrative decentralization as separate treatments while neglecting their complementarities leads to an omitted variable bias problem. Results from a more complete specification suggest that districts that were tre...
Economics Letters
Lokshin and Radyakin (2012) present evidence that month of birth affects child physical growth in... more Lokshin and Radyakin (2012) present evidence that month of birth affects child physical growth in India. We replicate these correlations using the same data and demonstrate that they are the result of spurious correlations between month of birth, age-at-measurement and child growth patterns in developing countries. We repeat the analysis on 39 additional countries and show that there is no evidence of seasonal birth effects in child height-forage z-score in any country. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the Demographic and Health Survey data used to estimate the correlation is not suitable for the task due to a previously unrecognized source of measurement error in child month of birth. We document results from several papers that should be re-interpreted in light of this issue.
Economics Letters, Aug 1, 2017
Lokshin and Radyakin (2012) present evidence that month of birth affects child physical growth in... more Lokshin and Radyakin (2012) present evidence that month of birth affects child physical growth in India. We replicate these correlations using the same data and demonstrate that they are the result of spurious correlations between month of birth, age-at-measurement and child growth patterns in developing countries. We repeat the analysis on 39 additional countries and show that there is no evidence of seasonal birth effects in child height-forage z-score in any country. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the Demographic and Health Survey data used to estimate the correlation is not suitable for the task due to a previously unrecognized source of measurement error in child month of birth. We document results from several papers that should be re-interpreted in light of this issue.
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Papers by deepak singhania