Kala Krishna - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Kala Krishna
Journal of International Economics, May 1, 1989
This paper deals with the effect of trade restrictions on competition In Ol1gopolIstc markets. Qu... more This paper deals with the effect of trade restrictions on competition In Ol1gopolIstc markets. Quantitative restrictions, such as VER's (Voluntary Export Restrictions) are shown to affect the extent to which foreign firms can compete in the domestic market, and hence to raise the equilibrium prices and profits of both domestic and foreign firms-when such restrictions are not too severe. This increase in prices and profits is shown to make it unlikely for VER's to raise National Welfare. In addition, I show that domestic output may fall due to the VER's. For these reasons, VER's do not seem to be desirable ways of restricting imports.
Contributions in Economic Analysis & Policy, Jul 6, 2004
This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are gra... more This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are grateful to Andrew Feltenstein for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerre... more NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2012
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from an elite engineering institution (EEI) in India we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enrol in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than if they would have had if they had chosen a less selective major. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection.
AEA Randomized Controlled Trials
National Bureau of Economic Research, Apr 1, 2019
SSRN Electronic Journal
There are no funding sources or material and relevant financial relationships to disclose. The vi... more There are no funding sources or material and relevant financial relationships to disclose. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
This paper looks at the predictions of a standard heterogeneous firm model regarding the exports ... more This paper looks at the predictions of a standard heterogeneous firm model regarding the exports of firms across markets in response to a particular trade policy "experiment" and compares these predictions to the data. A unique feature of our data is that it has information on the exports of the same firm to different markets which allows us to look for a new set of predictions of such models. We argue that while certain predictions seem consistent with the data, others are not. We then describe the patterns found in the data and argue that firm and market specific demand shocks help explain a number of these anomalies. These parsimoniously capture factors, like business contacts or networks, or even fashion shocks, that make buyers more attracted to one firm rather than another in a particular market.
and the City University of Hong Kong for comments. The views expressed herein are those of the au... more and the City University of Hong Kong for comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are gra... more This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are grateful to Andrew Feltenstein for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from an elite engineering institution (EEI) in India we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enrol in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than if they would have had if they had chosen a less selective major. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection.
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 1, 2016
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerre... more NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enroll in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than their same-caste counterparts in less selective majors. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection. * This project was started with the late Professor Sanghamitra Das. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Vibha Arora who was also involved in the exit survey but not in the rest of the data or its compilation or analysis, and Dr. Sunil Kale for his help in obtaining the data.
We use a proprietary dataset on the floor-level operations at the largest rail mill in India to s... more We use a proprietary dataset on the floor-level operations at the largest rail mill in India to study the response of productivity to the threat of entry. Output per active shift increased by 28 percent over 3 years with minimal changes in physical capital and employment. By combining data on the timing of various training programs in the mill with shift-level variation in worker composition, we are able to attribute over half of the higher productivity to training specifically targeted toward improving rail output. Our work suggests high returns to knowledge-enhancing investment in emerging economies. (JEL D22, D24, J24, L23, L32, L61, O14)
Do minimum wages affect economic outcomes beyond low-skill employment? This paper develops a new ... more Do minimum wages affect economic outcomes beyond low-skill employment? This paper develops a new model with heterogeneous firms under perfect competition in a Heckscher-Ohlin setting to show that a binding minimum wage raises product prices, encourages substitution away from labor, and creates unemployment. It reduces output and exports of the labor intensive good, despite higher prices and, less obviously, selection in the labor (capital) intensive sector becomes stricter (weaker). Exploiting rich regional variation in minimum wages across Chinese prefectures and using Chinese Customs data matched with firm level production data, we find robust evidence in support of causal effects of minimum wage consistent with our theoretical predictions.
Using high quality administrative data on Greece we show that class size has a hump shaped eect o... more Using high quality administrative data on Greece we show that class size has a hump shaped eect on achievement. We do so both nonparametrically and parametrically, while controlling for potential endogeneity and allowing for quantile eects. We then embed our estimates for this relationship in a dynamic structural model with costs of hiring and ring. We argue that the linear specication form used in past work may be why it found mixed results. Our work suggests that while discrete reductions in class size may have mixed eects, discrete increases are likely to have very negative eects while marginal changes in class size would have small negative eects. We nd optimal class sizes around 27 in the absence of adjustment costs and achievement maximizing ones around 15, and ring costs much larger than hiring costs consistent with the presence of unions. Despite this, reducing ring costs actually reduces achievement. Reducing hiring costs raises achievement and reduces class size. We show that class size caps are costly, and more so for small schools, even when set at levels well above average.
Review of International Economics, Feb 1, 1994
The actual cost of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) quotas to exporting developing countries cou... more The actual cost of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) quotas to exporting developing countries could be considerably higher than conventional estimates that assume that exporters seize all the scarcity rents. For U.S. apparel imports from Hong Kong, the authors' findings point to a 50-50 sharing of the rents between the exporters and the importers. lbe Policy. Resrch, and External Affairs Complex distrbuts PRE Working Papen to disseninate the findn of wodk in prop= and to wtounge the exchange of ideas among Bank staff and all othri interested in developm ent issues. Thee papers cany thae n me of the autho, tnlea oly their views, and should be used and cited accordingly. Th findings, intrpretations, and conclusios ame the auto ' own. Tey suld not be attibuted to the World Bank, iu Board of Dir,tor its managanent, or any of its member caonuie.
Journal of International Economics, May 1, 1989
This paper deals with the effect of trade restrictions on competition In Ol1gopolIstc markets. Qu... more This paper deals with the effect of trade restrictions on competition In Ol1gopolIstc markets. Quantitative restrictions, such as VER's (Voluntary Export Restrictions) are shown to affect the extent to which foreign firms can compete in the domestic market, and hence to raise the equilibrium prices and profits of both domestic and foreign firms-when such restrictions are not too severe. This increase in prices and profits is shown to make it unlikely for VER's to raise National Welfare. In addition, I show that domestic output may fall due to the VER's. For these reasons, VER's do not seem to be desirable ways of restricting imports.
Contributions in Economic Analysis & Policy, Jul 6, 2004
This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are gra... more This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are grateful to Andrew Feltenstein for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerre... more NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2012
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from an elite engineering institution (EEI) in India we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enrol in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than if they would have had if they had chosen a less selective major. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection.
AEA Randomized Controlled Trials
National Bureau of Economic Research, Apr 1, 2019
SSRN Electronic Journal
There are no funding sources or material and relevant financial relationships to disclose. The vi... more There are no funding sources or material and relevant financial relationships to disclose. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
This paper looks at the predictions of a standard heterogeneous firm model regarding the exports ... more This paper looks at the predictions of a standard heterogeneous firm model regarding the exports of firms across markets in response to a particular trade policy "experiment" and compares these predictions to the data. A unique feature of our data is that it has information on the exports of the same firm to different markets which allows us to look for a new set of predictions of such models. We argue that while certain predictions seem consistent with the data, others are not. We then describe the patterns found in the data and argue that firm and market specific demand shocks help explain a number of these anomalies. These parsimoniously capture factors, like business contacts or networks, or even fashion shocks, that make buyers more attracted to one firm rather than another in a particular market.
and the City University of Hong Kong for comments. The views expressed herein are those of the au... more and the City University of Hong Kong for comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are gra... more This paper was written while Kala Krishna was a visiting scholar at the IMF Institute. We are grateful to Andrew Feltenstein for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from an elite engineering institution (EEI) in India we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enrol in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than if they would have had if they had chosen a less selective major. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection.
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 1, 2016
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerre... more NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially adv... more Affirmative action policies in higher education are used in many countries to try to socially advance historically disadvantaged minorities. Although the underlying social objectives of these policies are rarely criticized, there is intense debate over the actual impact of such preferences in higher education on educational performance and labor outcomes. Most of the work uses U.S. data where clean performance indicators are hard to find. Using a remarkably detailed dataset on the 2008 graduating class from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education on minority students focusing on three central issues in the current debate: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. In addition, we present preliminary evidence on labor market discrimination. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than the average displaced non-minority student. Moreover, by analyzing the college performance of minority and non-minority students as they progress through college, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, especially those in more selective majors, fall behind their same-major peers which is the opposite of catching up. We also identify evidence in favor of the mismatch hypothesis: once we control for selection into majors, minority students who enroll in more selective majors as a consequence of admission preferences end up earning less than their same-caste counterparts in less selective majors. Finally, although there is no evidence of discrimination against minority students in terms of wages, we find that scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students are more likely to get worse jobs, even after controlling for selection. * This project was started with the late Professor Sanghamitra Das. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Vibha Arora who was also involved in the exit survey but not in the rest of the data or its compilation or analysis, and Dr. Sunil Kale for his help in obtaining the data.
We use a proprietary dataset on the floor-level operations at the largest rail mill in India to s... more We use a proprietary dataset on the floor-level operations at the largest rail mill in India to study the response of productivity to the threat of entry. Output per active shift increased by 28 percent over 3 years with minimal changes in physical capital and employment. By combining data on the timing of various training programs in the mill with shift-level variation in worker composition, we are able to attribute over half of the higher productivity to training specifically targeted toward improving rail output. Our work suggests high returns to knowledge-enhancing investment in emerging economies. (JEL D22, D24, J24, L23, L32, L61, O14)
Do minimum wages affect economic outcomes beyond low-skill employment? This paper develops a new ... more Do minimum wages affect economic outcomes beyond low-skill employment? This paper develops a new model with heterogeneous firms under perfect competition in a Heckscher-Ohlin setting to show that a binding minimum wage raises product prices, encourages substitution away from labor, and creates unemployment. It reduces output and exports of the labor intensive good, despite higher prices and, less obviously, selection in the labor (capital) intensive sector becomes stricter (weaker). Exploiting rich regional variation in minimum wages across Chinese prefectures and using Chinese Customs data matched with firm level production data, we find robust evidence in support of causal effects of minimum wage consistent with our theoretical predictions.
Using high quality administrative data on Greece we show that class size has a hump shaped eect o... more Using high quality administrative data on Greece we show that class size has a hump shaped eect on achievement. We do so both nonparametrically and parametrically, while controlling for potential endogeneity and allowing for quantile eects. We then embed our estimates for this relationship in a dynamic structural model with costs of hiring and ring. We argue that the linear specication form used in past work may be why it found mixed results. Our work suggests that while discrete reductions in class size may have mixed eects, discrete increases are likely to have very negative eects while marginal changes in class size would have small negative eects. We nd optimal class sizes around 27 in the absence of adjustment costs and achievement maximizing ones around 15, and ring costs much larger than hiring costs consistent with the presence of unions. Despite this, reducing ring costs actually reduces achievement. Reducing hiring costs raises achievement and reduces class size. We show that class size caps are costly, and more so for small schools, even when set at levels well above average.
Review of International Economics, Feb 1, 1994
The actual cost of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) quotas to exporting developing countries cou... more The actual cost of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) quotas to exporting developing countries could be considerably higher than conventional estimates that assume that exporters seize all the scarcity rents. For U.S. apparel imports from Hong Kong, the authors' findings point to a 50-50 sharing of the rents between the exporters and the importers. lbe Policy. Resrch, and External Affairs Complex distrbuts PRE Working Papen to disseninate the findn of wodk in prop= and to wtounge the exchange of ideas among Bank staff and all othri interested in developm ent issues. Thee papers cany thae n me of the autho, tnlea oly their views, and should be used and cited accordingly. Th findings, intrpretations, and conclusios ame the auto ' own. Tey suld not be attibuted to the World Bank, iu Board of Dir,tor its managanent, or any of its member caonuie.