Contributor : Profile
Nishith Prakash is an assistant professor of economics on a joint position with the Department of Economics and the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
Born and raised in Bihar, India, he earned M.A. in economics from Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University (India), and a Ph.D. in economics from University of Houston, TX and was a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University. He is a Research Fellow at Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and Member of Insights on Immigration and Development (INSIDE-SPAIN).
Prof. Prakash’s primary research interests include development, labor, public policy, and health economics. One line of his work focuses on understanding the effects of affirmative action policies in India on labor market outcomes, child labor and poverty. His other work has examined topics such as the returns to English-language skills in India, effects of corruption, nutrition and child development in India, and evaluation of welfare and behavioral impacts of Index Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) in Kenya. Prof. Prakash’s research uses experimental and quasi-experimental econometric techniques to obtain estimates with causal interpretations.
Posts by Nishith Prakash
Political Change and Crime Reduction in Bihar
The aim of this project was to understand the mechanisms through which the political changes in 2005 contributed to the dramatic subsequent reduction in violent crimes. This project is an extension of...
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Oliver Eynde
Clément Imbert
Nishith Prakash
12 October, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Political decentralisation, female leadership, and health in rural Bihar
Political decentralisation and female representation in governance are known to improve social welfare by influencing policy decisions in favour of women and children. Analysing data from rural Bihar,...
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Santosh Kumar
Nishith Prakash
23 August, 2017
- Articles
Criminally accused politicians and economic outcomes
Despite a history of widely contested and transparent elections, and presence of vibrant and open media, an increasing number of criminally accused politicians are being elected in India. Based on an...
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Tasneem Ahmed
Nishith Prakash
Marc Rockmore
Yogesh Uppal
15 January, 2016
- Articles
Bihar's alcohol ban: Prudent policy or tail-chasing?
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to implement prohibition in the state from 1 April 2016 is based on the rationale that alcohol consumption is the primary reason for violence against wo...
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Sanjeev Kumar
Nishith Prakash
21 December, 2015
- Perspectives
He is a criminal but he is our criminal: Criminally-accused politicians in India
The recent increase in the number of criminally-accused politicians elected to state assemblies has caused much furore in India. Despite the potentially important consequences and the widely divergent...
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Nishith Prakash
Marc Rockmore
Yogesh Uppal
01 August, 2015
- IGC Research on India
Does it pay to speak English in India?
There is a widely held belief that there are sizeable economic returns to English-language skills in India. This column seeks to estimate the wage returns to English skills in India. It is found that ...
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Mehtabul Azam
Aimee Chin
Nishith Prakash
20 September, 2013
- Articles
Cycling to School: Increasing High School Enrolment for Girls in Bihar
This project studies the impact of an innovative Programme in the Indian state of Bihar that aimed to reduce the gender gap in secondary school enrolment by providing girls who continued to secondary ...
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Karthik Muralidharan
Nishith Prakash
01 June, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Political reservation in India: The effect on poverty
Over the last 60 years, India’s Constitution has set aside seats in parliament for people from historically discriminated groups, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This column documents one...
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Nishith Prakash
10 December, 2012
- Articles
Education in Bihar: Still a long road ahead
In the north Indian state of Bihar, education has been improving faster than in the rest of the country. But as this column reminds us, Bihar is starting from the bottom. For education to continue to ...
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Nishith Prakash
07 September, 2012
- Articles
Women's Reservations in Bihar and Children's Health Outcomes
This project investigates the impact of political decentralization and gender quota in local governance on different measures of health outcomes and behaviors. The findings of the prioject are consist...
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Santosh Kumar
Nishith Prakash
01 June, 2012
- IGC Research on India
Education Policies and Practices
The objective of this project was to study the status of education in Bihar both in absolute terms and in relation to other states in India and also to identify best practices in education policies an...
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Nishith Prakash
01 April, 2012
- IGC Research on India