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  4. June 2016
  5. Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India

Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India

  • Surendrakumar Bagde
  • Dennis Epple
  • Lowell Taylor
American Economic Review
vol. 106, no. 6, June 2016
(pp. 1495-1521)
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Abstract

Public policy in modern India features affirmative action programs intended to reduce inequality that stems from a centuries-old caste structure and history of disparate treatment by gender. We study the effects of one such affirmative action program: an admissions policy that fixes percentage quotas, common across more than 200 engineering colleges, for disadvantaged castes and for women. We show that the program increases college attendance of targeted students, particularly at relatively higher-quality institutions. An important concern is that affirmative action might harm intended beneficiaries by placing them in academic programs for which they are ill-prepared. We find no evidence of such adverse impacts.

Citation

Bagde, Surendrakumar, Dennis Epple, and Lowell Taylor. 2016. "Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India." American Economic Review, 106 (6): 1495-1521. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20140783

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions
  • I28 Education: Government Policy
  • J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
  • J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
  • O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification