Ashwini Deshpande

Discriminatory social norms and early childhood development This study explores caste-based disparities in childhood stunting in India, focusing on the role of caste-based practices. Using data from the Nationa…

📣📣 new paper alert 🔔 50 days free access to new paper w Rajesh Ramachandran at @monashuniversity.bsky.social "Discriminatory social norms & early childhood development". How stigmatising caste norms, esp untouchability, affects childhood stunting adversely.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Some photos from a recent visit to #princeton Centre for Global India. It was really nice of Avinash Dixit to come to campus just to meet me 😊 Thanks to Tanushree Goyal for all the warm hospitality 🥰

On Monday at Princeton. Trying to unpack the puzzle of India's low female labour force participation (the recent rise notwithstanding). (What's demand got to do with it? 🤔) @seema.bsky.social

It was wonderful to be a small part of this exciting @lsepublicpolicy.bsky.social
project!

@ashwinideshpande.bsky.social @timdobermann.bsky.social @pgourinchas.bsky.social @pjtheeconomist.bsky.social @michaelmarmot.bsky.social @pisaniferry.bsky.social @dannyquah.bsky.social

Making sense of Trump's tariffs. With Dani Rodrik Podcast Episode · The Economics Show · 2025-02-06 · 36m

Excellent discussion about tariffs and industrial policy between @drodrik.bsky.social and @martinsandbu.ft.com!

Rodrik talks about Trump’s tariffs as an ineffective Swiss army knife to industrial policy. I would specify that it is a one-blade army knife.

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...

Love it when I get purple first 😎

Connections
Puzzle #607
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What happens when women are denied a wanted abortion?

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In the short run, their risk of death rises.

In the long run, they have...

-more health issues,
-lower education/labor-force participation, and
-higher rates of single motherhood, poverty, and reliance on government assistance

The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and Their Children* Abstract. This paper examines the impact of denying a wanted abortion on women and children in Colombia using high-quality administrative microdata and cre

"The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and Their Children Get access Arrow"

academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

My take in the IndianExpress today on the Larsen and Toubro 90-hour work week controversy. Instead of glorifying burnout, we need to focus on more sustainable work schedules, fair compensation and genuine equity.

Can political representation boost forest conservation? Despite fears that devolving control over forest resources to local communities may accelerate deforestation and worsen the climate crisis, the large-scale transfer of political power to India’s histo...

🆕 Can political representation boost forest conservation?

Today on VoxDev, @saadgulzar.bsky.social, @apoorvalal.com & @benpasquale.bsky.social explore how decentralising power in India impacted forest conservation: voxdev.org/topic/energy...

The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals Aigner E, Greenspon J, Rodrik D. The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals. 2025.

"The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals" (w/ E Aigner and J Greenspon)--a much revised and updated version now forthcoming at World Development. (Incidentally, my very first academic publication was in that same journal back in 1981!) drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/publications...

Connections
Puzzle #582
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Frightening!

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.

“In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy,” Hitler destroyed “a constitutional republic through constitutional means,” writes Timothy W. Ryback. Read about how Hitler overcame democracy in just 53 days:

The Getty Center, one of Los Angeles’s most renowned art museums, is now squarely in the mandatory evacuation zone as the Palisades fire’s footprint has grown. An active fire is about a half mile away, but the blaze is not threatening the museum’s main buildings. nyti.ms/3PwJWVC

Farm to table: freshly harvested kumquats converted to delish marmalade. Joys of #gardening & fresh #produce

Art Spiegelman Won’t Shrink Back From Controversy The artist has illustrated more than one contentious New Yorker cover in his career, chronicled in a new film, and his next project will be no less gutsy.

Maus author Art Spiegelman’s next comic will be about Gaza, in collaboration with Joe Sacco. He thinks he will struggle to find a publisher in the United States.

“I’ll finish this thing or die trying.”

I like a lot of figures in the paper, but this figure showing the wage effects across the wage distribution is one of my favorite.

Those at the bottom 10% of the wage distribution see the largest gains.

If only there were a study using a higher education expasion to examine whether encouraging students to pursue affordable higher ed boosts their income and enables them to pursue higher paid jobs.

We’ve lost a great man. The economic reforms led by Manmohan Singh lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, and gave them livelihoods, dignity— and hope. And by all accounts, he remained empathetic, humble, thoughtful, and gentle to the very end.

Manmohan Singh, Indian Premier Behind Economic Changes, Dies at 92 The country’s first Sikh prime minister, he introduced free-market reforms that turned India into an economic powerhouse. He signed a nuclear deal with Washington and sought reconciliation with Pakist...

Amazing pioneer of trade and industrial reforms in India. The 1991 reforms changed the trajectory of India's economy & the course of history, in many ways he was the Deng Xiaoping of India....
Manmohan Singh, Indian Premier Behind Economic Changes, Dies at 92 www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/w...

I have moved my open textbook on inequality research to a new address:
https://maxkasy.github.io/inequalityresearch/

(The textbook has not been updated recently, but hopefully is still useful.)

When the former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to DSE for Kaushik Basu’s 65th birthday conference in 2017. An erudite, gentle, courteous presence, he interacted with all of us with utmost ease. Deepest condolences to my Ashoka Univ colleague Upinder Singh & rest of the family.

🥇of my 2024 reads. Happen to be written by women but that's not the (only) reason I found these excellent. The writing is empathetic, nuanced, lucid, moving & the analysis is sharp with new insights. Reveals a face of India that urban, upper middle class, Eng-speaking Indians are mostly oblivious to

We've significantly updated our paper on modeling + measuring systemic discrimination! Check it out:

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ab5yx...

(cc @aleximas.bsky.social + @aislinnbohren.bsky.social!)

A short 🧵 on what's new...

A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing? What the death of a health-insurance C.E.O. means to America.

NaviHealth algorithm has a “known error rate” of 90%. A man in Tennessee broke his back, was hospitalized for 6 days, moved to a nursing home for 11 days, was informed by UnitedHealth that his care would be cut off in 2 days. He left nursing home, died 4 days later
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Me to AI: Show me a photo of a doctor and nurse at work. First photo: ChatGPT. Second photo: MetaAI. Docs always male; nurses female. Meta has non-White images, ChatGPT predominantly white. AI inherits & reflects our stereotypes & labour market imbalances

These were some of Meta’s photos when I asked for a picture of a “professional at work”