We provide axiomatic characterizations of two natural families of rules for aggregating equivalence relations: the family of join aggregators and the family of meet aggregators. The central conditions in these characterizations are two separability axioms. Disjunctive separability, neutrality,...

Using a unique household panel data set for rural India covering the years 1993/1994 and 2004/2005 we test a key theoretical assertion of caste and its effects, namely that marginalised social groups fare worse in terms of income levels when resident in villages dominated by upper castes. We...

For the class of tree games, a new solution called the average tree solution has been proposed recently. We provide a characterization of this solution. This characterization underlines an important difference, in terms of symmetric treatment of the agents, between the average tree solution and...

This paper seeks to understand temporal changes in poverty and well-being in Indian cities during the era of economic reforms. The evidence on improvements in well being is mixed. During this period, there was an increase in the number of urban poor. Using two nationally representative samples,...

This paper assesses the effect of transition from monthly distribution of free food grains to the daily provision of free cooked meals to school children on enrollments and attendance in a rural area of India. School panel data allow a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to address...

We consider dominant strategy implementation in private values settings, when agents have multi-dimensional types, the set of alternatives is finite, monetary transfers are allowed, and agents have quasi-linear utilities. We show that any implementable and neutral social choice function must be...

We study mechanism design in a setting where agents know their types but are uncertain about the utility from any alternative. The lnal realized utility of each agent is observed by the principal and can be contracted upon. In such environments, the principal is not restricted to using only...

How does information on environmental risks obtained by individuals in developing countries affect environmental quality? The literature reveals that for issues like water quality and pesticides, information affects individual behavior and risks are reduced through individual action. However,...

We study deterministic single object auctions in private values environments. We show that a deterministic allocation rule is implementable (in dominant strategies) if and only if it is a generalized utility maximizer. With a mild continuity condition, we show that a deterministic allocation...