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The Review of Economics and Statistics VOL.CII MAY 2020 NUMBER 2 DOES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION INCENTIVIZE SCHOOLING? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA Gaurav Khanna* Abstract—Affirmative action raises the likelihood of getting into college or tas, (b) the fraction of seats that should be reserved, and (c) obtaining a government job for minority social groups in India. I find that which groups should be eligible. I take three distinct em- minority group students are incentivized to stay in school longer in response to changes in future prospects. To identify causal relationships, I leverage pirical approaches to speak to each of these issues. First, I variation in group eligibility, school age cohorts, and state-level intensity study a nationwide law change that reserved federal govern- of implementation in difference-in-differences and regression discontinu- ment jobs for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). These jobs ity designs. These estimators consistently show that affirmative action in- centivizes about 0.8 additional years of education for the average minority required specific educational qualifications, raising the re- group student and 1.2 more years of education for a student from a marginal turns to certain levels of schooling. By comparing eligible minority subgroup. castes to ineligible castes and student cohorts young enough to change their schooling decisions to those that were too old, I estimate that minority groups attain 0.8 more years of edu- I. Introduction cation. These effects are absent among ineligible minorities, FFIRMATIVE action is a contentious issue for poli- ineligible candidates within the eligible minority groups, and Acymakers and academics across the world, including low-income students from ineligible upper castes. the United States, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nigeria, and The average effects from my first approach, however, say Brazil. The research and subsequent policy debates involve little about how this relationship changes as we increase the issues of college mismatch (Arcidiacono et al., 2011), direct fraction of reserved seats (or the intensity of reservations). A effects on college enrollment and test scores (Bagde, Epple, very high intensity of reservations may lead to complacency & Taylor, 2016), and the consequent effects on nonminority or lead employers to devalue the qualifications of minor- groups (Bertrand, Hanna, & Mullainathan, 2010). However, ity groups, thereby disincentivizing educational attainment little is known about the impacts on human capital invest- (Coate & Loury, 1993). For my second approach, I leverage ment for potential future beneficiaries. In this paper, I study variation in affirmative action laws for college admissions and the causal impact of affirmative action policies on school- government jobs at the state level. I create an original data set ing decisions in India. Reservation quotas make it easier for based on historical laws passed in each state by petitioning the minority groups to get into college or get a government job. government for archived commission reports. I then examine As with many other affirmative action programs, a minimum three sources of variation—the timing of these laws, the mi- level of education is required to be eligible for certain po- nority groups eligible, and the intensity of reservations—to sitions, changing potential future benefits, and encouraging determine how changing the intensity affects the relation- skill acquisition. I find that by raising the future expected re- ship between affirmative action and educational attainment. turns to education, such policies incentivize minority groups By comparing low-intensity states to high-intensity ones, to stay in school longer. I show that the relationship between changes in education Policymakers have at least three factors to consider while and the fraction of seats reserved is concave. This suggests implementing reservations: (a) the average effects of quo- that extremely intensive affirmative action programs may detrimentally lower the educational attainment of minority groups. Received for publication December 6, 2017. Revision accepted for pub- lication February 13, 2019. Editor: Rohini Pande. The third policy factor to consider is which minority ∗Khanna: University of California, San Diego. groups, on the margin, should be eligible. India has numer- I thank Ach Adhvaryu, Peter Arcidiacono, Raj Arunachalam, Hoyt Bleak- ous subcastes, and subcaste eligibility is a contentious issue. ley, John Bound, Charlie Brown, John DiNardo, Rob Garlick, Meera Marginal subcastes are better off than the average low-caste Mahadevan, Karthik Muralidharan, Jeff Smith, Mel Stephens, Thomas Weisskopf, Dean Yang, and seminar participants at Michigan, NEUDC candidate and may find it easier to take advantage of such (Harvard), MWIEDC (Madison), IZA (Bonn), and the Indian Statistical affirmative action policies but may have less to gain from Institute (Delhi) for insightful suggestions. An earlier version of this paper them. In my third approach, I compare subcastes that just re- was titled “Incentivizing Standards or Standardizing Incentives? Affirma- tive Action in India.” ceived the program to subcastes that just lost out. Haryana, A supplemental appendix is available online at http://www.mitpress a state in India, conducted a large socioeconomic survey and journals.org/doi/suppl/10.1162/rest_a_00848. ranked subcastes on an “index of backwardness” to determine The Review of Economics and Statistics, May 2020, 102(2): 219–233 © 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00848 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/rest_a_00848 by guest on 28 September 2021 220 THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS subcaste eligibility. Any subcaste with a score greater than alize.3 This paper is novel in that it empirically isolates the half of the total value of the index was eligible. Using a regres- causal impacts on incentives before the policy benefits kick sion discontinuity (RD) design, I compare subcastes on either in. In doing so, I compile an original data set of state laws side of this cutoff. Since schooling levels of older members and exploit one state’s law to perform an RD analysis. should not be affected by this policy, I further use them as In section II, I discuss the context of caste and class in a control group in a difference-in-discontinuities approach. India, the underlying legal and historical foundation behind On average, a student from the marginal subcaste attains 1.2 affirmative action, and recruitment in public sector jobs. Sec- more years of education, suggesting that there are plausibly tion III explores the theory, building on a rich literature on large, positive incentive effects of expanding the coverage of affirmative action. Section IV discusses the data, whereas these programs to marginal minority subgroups. section V covers the main empirical strategies and results. All estimators consistently point toward an increase in Section VI concludes. educational attainment for the targeted minority group in response to reservations. Importantly, each estimator deter- mines a different parameter necessary for welfare analyses of II. Reservation Policy in India such policies. While the difference-in-differences approach Historically, each subcaste in India was linked to certain estimates the average impact of the implementation of new occupations, resulting in a social hierarchy that, despite polit- quotas, the RD determines the impact on the marginal sub- ical gains, persists in socioeconomic outcomes today (Gang, caste included. State-level variation allows me to determine Sen, & Yun, 2011).4 Affirmative action policies were defined how these impacts vary as we increase the intensity of reserva- on the basis of caste or social class, and the policy interven- tions. These three parameters are crucial for any meaningful tions were much larger and more salient than in most other discussion of the costs and benefits of such policies. countries. Today, reservations are an integral part of politi- Public education policy in low-income countries is usually cal platforms and election campaigns; the media cover policy associated with lowering the costs of education (Duflo, 2001; extensively, and any policy change is met with protests from King & Orazem, 2008). The policies I study in this paper are different factions.5 different in that they change the less tangible future returns The Constitution identifies certain disadvantaged Sched- 1 rather than current schooling costs. Higher returns are likely uled Castes (SCs), and certain aboriginal Scheduled Tribes to induce more schooling (Freeman, 1976), and there is re- (STs) as the least-well-off groups. These groups were eligible liable evidence from India supporting such claims (Foster & for reservations in government jobs, university admissions, Rosenzweig, 1996; Jensen, 2012; Kochar, 2004). Yet increas- and legislatures.6 Importantly, Article 16(4) in the Consti- ing the returns may have perverse effects in low-income set- tution left room for expanding this preferential treatment to tings, as better wage opportunities raise the opportunity cost other disadvantaged sections of society. The purpose was to of schooling (de Brauw & Giles, 2008), and strategic incen- provide a level playing field for communities that have suf- tives within households may lead to adverse consequences fered from historical discrimination. The Constitution states, (Jensen & Miller, 2015).