Job Market Paper

From Tribe to State: A Case of Nagaland (Click here for a draft)

Abstract: What happens when a state absorbs a historically stateless, tribal society, and what are the consequences and mechanisms of such a process? This paper uses a spatial regression discontinuity design to study the long-run effects of state exposure in a region in northeast India. At the turn of the 19th century the British Empire in the eastern front of India drew an imperial border that divided a tribal people into administered versus un-administered regions. I find that regions falling within the former British administrative border have higher years of schooling, higher rates of literacy, and more wealth today. Villages in the formerly administered regions also have better public goods/services and a smaller agricultural share in the labor force. Using census data I am also able to study time varying effects of this historical state exposure—gaps in literacy rates are very persistent with little signs of convergence even 70 years after independence in 1947. In uncovering deeper channels that are potentially driving these results, I find evidence of the emergence of pro-social traits: those formerly under the British state identify more strongly with non-kin members, reflecting an expansion of the in-group. This paper thus contributes to our understanding of the immediate changes that occur in a society transitioning from tribe to state.

Keywords: State, Society, Persistence, Institutions, Culture, Identity, History.

JEL Codes: K00, N95, O1, P5

Conference Presentations: Northwest Development Workshop 2023 (U of Oregon), PacDev 2024 (Stanford)

Work in Progress

Consequences of forced urbanization via village groupings in Mizoram (Draft coming soon)

Abstract: This paper studies the short and long run effects of a forced urbanization program by the Indian government on the citizens of Mizoram, a mountainous, tribal state in northeast India. In response to an impending famine in the mid 1960s, an insurgent movement with a demand for administrative autonomy took hold of the region. To weaken the stronghold of the guerrilla fighters the government felt it necessary to forcefully relocate people from 500+ villages to one of 103 existing villages called grouping centers (GCs) for easier monitoring; around 110 villages were left ungrouped. Furthermore, government reports add that this was also intended to bolster economic growth of the largely rural population. Using a historic difference-in-difference comparing the GCs with the ungrouped villages, I find that the policy had only temporary effects on population growth divergence. In the long run, gaps returned to pre-policy levels. I observe a similar pattern when looking at the agriculture share of the labor force. These results can be explained by the fact that most villagers returned to their original villages once the program ended. I explore further to see if the terrain of the GCs can explain the difficulties they faced in absorbing large populations in a short span of time. This study thus adds insights into the determinants of urbanization and suggests a bigger role played by the self selection of people into the cities in the process of urbanization as documented in previous studies. In addition general equilibrium effects when not taken into account could lead to different conclusions about the effects of agglomeration for welfare.

Oppositional Identities in Response to Annexation: How do Minority Groups Assert Themselves? 

Is Geography Exogenous? Culture and Migration in Southeast Asia