Articles by Neeraj Hatekar

After being largely stable between 1999–2000 and 2004–05, the new middle class in India (that is, those spending between $2 and $10 per capita per day) doubled in size between 2004–05 and 2011–12, amounting to nearly half of India’s population. This growth, though largely in the lower middle class category, happened across a majority of states in both rural and urban areas. Structurally, the new middle class is quite different from the conventional understanding of it. Although dominated by upper castes, other caste groups too have entered the new middle class in large numbers. The occupational structure within the class is heterogeneous. The lower middle class is engaged in occupations similar to that of the poor, whereas the upper middle class is involved in traditional service activities as well as in new knowledge services.

Mainstream economic theory holds that economic agents are purely self-interested players. However, individual preferences could be socially determined by sustained enculturation in contexts that emphasise and applaud cooperative behaviour that may lead to pro-social individual preferences. If this is the case, communities with long-established social norms of cooperation might make individuals behave more cooperatively even when selfish behaviour is guaranteed to go unpunished. Can communities where the norm of cooperation is culturally embedded solve social dilemmas better than communities which lack such cultures? Can such cultures be engineered in a relatively short span of time? These questions were evaluated through a finitely repeated public good game in two model villages of Maharashtra, known for local development achieved through voluntary labour, and two villages lacking such a history. We observed higher contributions to public goods in communities with histories of cooperation. And found that variations across individuals were significantly higher than variations across villages, indicating that village-wide cultures may not be as important as individual-level preferences.

This paper attempts to distinguish "trust in cooperation" and "trust in ability" with respect to gender in an experimental trust game. "Trust in ability" with respect to gender is explored in the context of hands-on mechanical ability where females are stereotypically believed to be inefficient. Such stereotypes govern, directly or indirectly, women's access to education and employment, resulting in occupational segregation of the labour market. All this further intensifies gender inequality. We observed higher probability of exhibiting stereotype among men and women paired with other women, despite a statistically insignificant gender gap in actual mechanical performances. This indicates that "trust in ability" can be governed by such stereotypes and affect economic outcomes. We seek causes of the prevalence of gender stereotype in evolutionary psychology. We also describe the demotivating psychological process women suffered from, due to endorsement of such stereotypes by society.

Hands-on Intermediate Econometrics Using R: Templates for Extending Dozens of Practical Examples by Hrishikesh D Vinod (World Scientific), hardcover, pp xxvii + 512, $ 94.

The survey begins, in Part 1, with a presentation of the historical emergence of the subject and provides the methodological justification for economics experiments. In presenting the history of the field, Part I also discusses the forces that impelled or impeded its evolution.