This paper examines the effects of an alcohol prohibition law in Bihar, India, on intoxicant consumption. We implement a dynamic difference-in-difference estimation strategy using longitudinal data on monthly household expenses, exploiting state-level variation in policy exposure and household-level variation in alcohol use. We document that alcohol- consuming households in Bihar reduced their spending on tobacco products following the ban announcement, indicating complementarity between alcohol and other intoxicants; however, after its strict enforcement, when alcohol was unavailable, these households gradually increased their tobacco consumption. We find reallocation in healthcare spending: urgent medical expenses decrease with increased spending towards positive lifestyle changes.

U.S. inflation surged in 2021-22 and has since declined, driven largely by a sharp drop in goods inflation, though services inflation remains elevated. This paper zooms into services inflation, using proprietary microdata on wages to examine its relation-ship with service sector wage growth at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level. We estimate the wage-price pass-through with a local projection instrumental variable model that exploits variation in labor market tightness across MSAs. Our findings re-veal a positive and significant relationship between wages and price growth, with a lag. This suggests that the effects of tight labor markets are persistent and may influence the pace of progression toward the inflation target.

There is a growing body of evidence on how early-life shocks have a significant bearing on long-term human capital formation (Almond and Currie, 2011; Currie and Vogl, 2013). However, there is a limited understanding of the relationship between early-life climate shocks and the prevalence of non-communicable diseases, particularly in the context of developing countries (Cheng et al., 2023; Chang et al., 2022; McEniry, 2013). This project aims to address this critical gap by investigating the causal relationship between early-life climate shocks (in particular, temperature shocks) and the likelihood of developing non-communicable diseases in later life.

Unlike rainfall shocks, which have been extensively studied (Carrillo, 2020; Chang et al., 2022; Shah and Steinberg, 2017), there is limited research on understanding the effects of temperature shocks on later-life health outcomes (Wilde et al., 2017; Hongoli and Hahn, 2023). In this project, we examine how early-life exposure to heat and cold shocks and temperature vulnerability affect long-term health outcomes for adult men and women in India. Further, we aim to investigate if these effects are gendered in nature.

The rise in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases is a significant concern not only for developed countries but also for developing countries, which are grappling with the dual burden alongside malnutrition (Popkin et al., 2020; Tzioumis and Adair, 2014; Gowshall and Taylor-Robinson, 2018; Herbert et al., 2012; Bhagyalaxmi et al., 2013). In these regions, where undernourishment is common, individuals are increasingly developing lifestyle-related diseases later in life (Winicha-Goon and Margetts, 2017). In 2021, the global prevalence of anemia was 24.3%, affecting approximately 1.92 billion people. India has the highest rate of anemia prevalence worldwide, with over 300 million women, or half of the total female population, affected by the condition (Dasgupta et al., 2023; Collaborators et al., 2023; Chaparro and Suchdev, 2019). Anemia particularly affects women of reproductive age, exacerbating problems associated with morbidity and mortality, reducing work productivity, and impeding neurological development (Chaparro and Suchdev, 2019).

Our study uses data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), specifically rounds IV (2015-2016) and V (2019-2021) which collects information on various lifestyle-related diseases, including diabetes, anemia, hypertension, cancer, and heart disease. We focus on individuals aged 15-49 years in India, with a particular emphasis on conditions like diabetes and anemia, which are major concerns areas of public health in the country. In addition, we make use of the granular data on climate shocks sourced from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), containing monthly minimum and maximum temperatures from 1951 to 2016 for each district in India.

Our preliminary findings indicate that early-life exposure to maximum temperature shocks significantly increases the risk of mild to severe anemia, particularly in males. Furthermore, we find that men are more likely to develop diabetes if they are exposed to minimum temperature shocks early in life, especially when they are middle-aged (30–49 years). In contrast, we find a higher incidence of diabetes with maximum temperature shocks in older females (45–49 years).

In the context of increasing climate vulnerability and morbidity in developing countries, understanding the causal link between temperature shocks and health outcomes is crucial for policymakers. The identification of susceptible groups and the causal impacts of temperature shocks on nutrition and long-term health can facilitate the formulation of targeted policies aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on long-term health.

Sexual harassment at workplace is one of the significant barriers women face in improving their economic outcomes. The *Me Too movement brought to light the high prevalence of this issue across the world. Several countries, including India, have already taken cognizance of this problem and promulgated legislation to prevent and punish such acts of harassment. In 1997, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark judgment that laid down the Vishaka guidelines – a set of procedural guidelines to be followed by establishments in dealing with complaints about sexual harassment. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act (POSH Act) went a step ahead of Vishaka Guidelines by redefining the workplace, sexual harassment, consequences of non-compliance, and a time-bound process of complaint resolution.

The POSH Act in India provides prevention and redressal mechanisms against sexual harassment complaints.1 It puts the onus of undertaking measures to prevent sexual harassment and deal with any reported incidences in a quick and fair manner on the employer. The Act was passed by both the parliamentary houses in February 2013 and came into force from December 2013. The act applies to all workplaces in India, including government, private, and non-governmental organizations. Under the POSH Act, 2013, an employer must constitute an Internal Complaints Committee that investigates all sexual harassment complaints reported within the organization. The Committee is required to be formed at each office or establishment of the company that employs 10 or more employees and is required to complete the inquiry within a time period of 90 days.

In this project, using nationally representative employment data at individual level (National employment and unemployment surveys) and panel data for manufacturing establishments in India (Annual Survey of Industries), we aim to identify the impact of the POSH Act on female employment by exploiting the discontinuity along firm size since the Act imposed larger compliance costs for firms having at least 10 workers and the time of implementation. We use a difference-in-differences design to estimate the change in relative female paid employment (vs male employment) in firms having at least 10 employees with those having less than 10 employees, after the passage of the Act. At the firm level, we again use a difference-in-difference strategy exploiting the fact that firms of size 10 or more had to bear the largest compliance cost of the POSH Act. The pre-period constitutes data from 2009-2012, and the post-period constitutes data from 2013-2016. The treatment group is any firm that hires more than 10 workers on average in the pre-period.

Policy Implication: Women are protected from discrimination under the labour laws of India. Further, laws are often enacted to with the aim to protect their rights such as the Maternity Benefits Act of 2017, the Prevention of Sexual harassment Act of 2013 and regulations that restrict their employment in the night shift due to safety concerns. While these laws are enacted with the aim to protect workers, they can backfire and undermine women’s employment if employers’ compliance cost increases with their passage. This study aims to study the impact of one such legislation that aims to protect female workers in India against workplace sexual harassment to examine whether it can lead to unintended consequences. The findings of the study can be used to design and implement public policies that aim to protect female workers without increase cost of compliance for the employers and hence resulting in adverse consequences more effectively.

Immigration and its impacts on the host country have risen to the forefront of political agendas and policy debates in the recent years. Both low skilled and high-skilled legal immigration has come under attack from policy makers. Brexit and restrictive H-1B visa regime under Trump regime in the USA are recent examples of restrictive policies in movement of high skilled labor across countries. Supporters of these policies often blame immigration for lower domestic wages and decline in employment opportunities for the natives. However, multinational companies can undertake offshoring of such jobs (hiring people in their affiliate offices abroad) when visa regimes become more restrictive, instead of increasing native employment.

In this paper, we aim to examine the impact of increase in uncertainty in costs of access to high skilled migrant workers under the Trump regime on the US and India based jobs posted by firms in India. The H-1B program in the US forms the cornerstone for high skilled immigration and Indians form 70% of the migrants under the program. In 2016 when Trump won the primary election it created a stir in the US given the high pitched political campaign against immigration, specifically the H-1B program. When he came to power, legal changes were made that increased costs of hiring under the visa program by increasing uncertainty, even though the quota remained unchanged. Such uncertainty can have impacts not only on the host country through its impacts on productivity and growth of firms that hire H-1B workers, it can also impact the labor markets in migrant sending country.

Our primary dataset comprises job postings on India’s largest online job platform between
2014 and 2019, with a market share of more than 70% in 2017. There is also information on job title, role category, functional area, location, company id, salary and educational and experience requirements along with a detailed job description. The key advantage of the vacancy data vis-a-vis the administrative datasets is its high frequency and detailed occupational classification and the possibility of tracking US based demand for labor across firms. We hypothesize that firms more impacted by the visa policy change are more likely to change hiring behaviour for India based postings after the shock. As firms exhibit heterogeneity in the number of US-related job postings, we assess the differential change in India based postings by their exposure to the policy change. We then assess whether offshoring explains the observed differential changes in jobs posted in India by firms that earlier hired for US based positions i.e., firms shift the jobs performed in the US to India.

Policy Implication: Free trade in products and people is often regarded as an important engine for creating better jobs, increasing incomes and reducing poverty in the sending country and also addressing labor and skill deficit in the receiving country. India-US trade ties are important not only for product trade but the US is also the largest market for Indian labor and for services exports from India. Hence, policies around H-1B visa access have always been a crucial fulcrum on which trade ties between the countries have rested. Indian government has often intervened on behalf of Indian industry when visa curbs have been imposed by the US (Livemint). Our study throws light on how India and US based firms cope up with curbs on hiring immigrant workers by the host country. If firms offshore jobs instead of hiring more native workers in the US, it shows that the availability of talent is indeed a binding constraint for these firms. Visa curbs or increase in uncertainty in visa policy are then unlikely to improve outcomes for native workers in the US, a usual argument for increasing visa restrictions by governments.

Description of Project 

The consumption of alcohol and intoxicants, such as cigarettes, bidis, marijuana, and other forms of tobacco products, which are addictive or habit-forming goods, have been documented to be closely related. However, there is considerable debate regarding the substitutability or complementarity be tween them. Decker & Schwartz (2000) find that while the cross-price elasticity of alcohol consumption with respect to cigarette price changes is positive, implying substitutability, the relationship is reversed on investigating changes in cigarette consumption as a result of alcohol price changes. Shrestha (2018) finds that higher cigarette prices result in fewer young adults participating in drinking; however, condi tional on participation, individuals increase their alcohol consumption. Tauchmann et al. (2007) finds complementarity between liquor and tobacco products, whereas there is evidence of substitutability between the consumption of alcohol and marijuana or drug use (DiNardo & Lemieux, 2001; Alley et al., 2020; Reiman, 2009; Chaloupka & Laixuthai, 1997; Miller & Seo, 2018). 

Policies aimed at increasing overall market consumption of households or reducing the consumption of one of these addictive goods may have externality effects on the other goods. Therefore, it is imper ative to understand the household preferences over these goods to correctly quantify the effectiveness of a policy and to avoid unintended consequences, both in the short run as well as over a longer period of time. In April 2016, the State of Bihar implemented the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or consumption of alcohol. In this project, we aim to quantify the dynamic effects of this ban on the consumption of intoxicants and other goods in households. 

Data Sources 

For our project, we plan to use data on the monthly income and expenditure of households in India from the Consumer Pyramids Households Survey database developed by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). They report detailed expenditure on different categories of food, clothing, durables, alcohol, intoxicants, health, and education. CMIE conducts nationwide surveys throughout India to collect this data. This survey covers over 160,000 households in all the 640 districts in the 2011 Census. Our study, however, would be restricted to Bihar and the adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, which share borders with Bihar. 

By design, CPHS is a continuous panel, and this feature would make it crucial for our study. The CMIE started reporting their data since 2014, and thus, we can observe the consumption behavior of households both before and after the ban. Surveyed households are selected through a multi-stage stratification process that ensures geographical diversity. Households who are in the survey are paid a visit every four months, and their expenditures and income are recorded via a detailed list for each item. This enables us to study changes in the expenditure of households at different points in time: in response to the announcement of an upcoming ban, immediately following its implementation, and a few years after the ban has been in place. 

Methodology 

We first use a difference-in-difference framework to assess the impact of the ban on households that consumed alcohol and thus were affected by the changing law relative to households that never con sumed liquor prior to the announcement of the ban. We study the resulting changes in the consumption of these goods, when the ban is announced, when the ban is implemented, and the persistence of these changes over the next couple of years. To the best of our knowledge, this dynamic investigation is novel in this literature and aims to provide insights into the effectiveness of a policy both in the short run as well as over a longer period of time. Next, we use variation across states to investigate the effect of the ban in Bihar relative to the neighboring states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand (we restrict our analysis only to the districts that share a border with Bihar), where no such change in law took place. We also use a triple difference approach to compare between Bihar and its neighboring states, the expenditure of households that consumed liquor relative to those that did not, as a result of the prohibition of alcohol.