Ethnic Quotas and the Distribution of Public Benefits in India: A Replication and Reanalysis of Dunning and Nilekani (2013)

25 Pages Posted: 23 Oct 2016

See all articles by Gautam Nair

Gautam Nair

Yale University, Department of Political Science

Hari Ramesh

Political Science, Yale University

Date Written: January 1, 2015

Abstract

In contrast to previous research, Dunning and Nilekani (2013 APSR) find that household level data do not support the view that the distribution of targeted public benefits to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes has increased as a result of quotas in Indian village councils. Using a natural experiment created by rotating reserved council presidencies for these historically disadvantaged groups, the authors contend that the marginal effects of quotas are not significantly different from zero. Although a strong design, a transparent estimation strategy, and fully replicable results make the study compelling, we combine an intuitive presentation of power calculations and equivalence tests (Hartman and Hidalgo 2011), to show that the study is able to reject a null hypothesis of no effect only under an alternative hypothesis of a large difference in means. The study also lacks the power to reject a null of effect sizes previously documented in the literature on reservations in Indian village councils. Through the utilization of minimum detectable effects and equivalence testing, we provide a principled approach for evaluating null results in other settings.

Keywords: Quotas, India, Distribution

JEL Classification: H1, H41, P16

Suggested Citation

Nair, Gautam and Ramesh, Hari, Ethnic Quotas and the Distribution of Public Benefits in India: A Replication and Reanalysis of Dunning and Nilekani (2013) (January 1, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2854770 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2854770

Gautam Nair (Contact Author)

Yale University, Department of Political Science ( email )

New Haven, CT 06520
United States

Hari Ramesh

Political Science, Yale University ( email )

493 College St
New Haven, CT CT 06520
United States

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