Occupational Structure and Incidence of Poverty in Indian Towns of Different Sizes

This paper investigates the incidence of poverty in Indian towns and cities of various sizes of population. It also tests the hypothesis that larger towns and cities, because of their size, are capable of supporting more complex economic activities, improving labor productivity, and hence lowering the incidence of poverty. In particular, similar levels of education, ceteris paribus, have a larger impact in bigger conurbations.     

Testing a Hazard Model for the Housing Market in New Orleans

A bstract .   The article presents a search-theoretic approach to investigate the relationship between probability of a sale and market duration in the housing market. Using a hazard model to study duration dependence, the article, on the basis of data from New Orleans, provides empirical evidence that houses do exhibit duration dependence.     

The predictive power of yield spread: evidence from wavelet analysis

This paper examines whether the spread between long- and short-terminterest rates contains information about future economic activity in India. Using the yields on securities with maturities ranging from three months to ten years, we construct five different yield spreads at shorter end, longer end, and policy relevant area of the yield curve. We study the predictive power of each of these spreads for output growth within aggregate and time scale framework using wavelet methodology. We find that predictive power holds only at lower frequencies for the spreads which are constructed at shorter end and policy relevant areas of yield curve. However, spreads which are constructed at the longer end of the yield curve do not seem to have predictive information for output growth.     

Caste in 21st Century India: Competing Narratives

Recent debates regarding inclusion of caste in 2011 Census have raised questions about whether caste still matters in modern India. Ethnographic studies of the mid-20th century identified a variety of dimensions along which caste differentiation occurs. At the same time, whether this differentiation translates into hierarchy remains a contentious issue as does the persistence of caste, given the economic changes of the past two decades. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 41,554 households conducted in 2005, this paper examines the relationship between social background and different dimensions of well-being. The results suggest continued persistence of caste disparities in education, income and social networks.