Research
Courts, Firms, and Informality (Job Market Paper)
Ulyssea (2018) estimated a structural model looking at the intensive (formal firms hiring informal workers) and extensive (firms becoming informal) margins of informality. Other authors suggest higher court productivity (less congestion, faster disposals) leads to more bank credits, better contract enforcement, property rights, etc. The paper discusses the extensive and intensive margin impacts when court productivity increases in the specific case of India. In theory, these different channels could lead to more formal firms (due to better contract enforcement, access to finance, etc) with more informal workers (formal workers more likely to go to court).
Environmental Litigation as Scrutiny: A Four Decade Analysis of Justice, Firms, and Pollution in India
(with S. Bhupatiraju, D. L. Chen, S. Joshi, & S. Singh)
This study investigates the impact of judicial enforcement on environmental outcomes in India, using a unique dataset spanning four decades that includes court cases, pollution data, corporate finances, and infant mortality rates. Leveraging the quasi-random assignment of cases to judges and their writing styles, we find evidence consistent with litigation as scrutiny. Findings show that environmental litigation leads to temporary reductions in pollution and affects firm performance during legal proceedings. However, pollution levels rebound post-litigation, with no significant effect at anytime on infant mortality. This highlights the limited efficacy of judicial environmental interventions in highly polluted contexts like India.
Impact of free legal search on rule of law: evidence from Indian Kanoon
(with S. Bhupatiraju, D. L. Chen & S. Joshi)
This paper examines the role of digital platforms, specifically Indian Kanoon, in providing free legal search services and their impact on overcoming economic barriers at the market level. Utilizing a generalized difference-in-differences approach, our analysis reveals that the staggered rollout of Kanoon has significantly improved access to justice and court efficiency without compromising decision quality. Notably, the advent of Kanoon has instigated profound financial alterations in firms, evidenced by marked increases in assets, income, and expenditures. These effects were observed not only in litigating firms but across the wider business spectrum. Consequently, this study sheds light on the pivotal role of unrestricted access to legal information in driving economic progress.
Who is in justice? Caste, religion and gender in the courts of Bihar over a decade
(with S. Bhupatiraju, D. L. Chen & S. Joshi) => WB Working Paper
Bihar is widely regarded as one of India’s poorest and most divided states. It has also been the site of many social movements that have left indelible marks on the state’s politics and identity. Little is currently known about how structural inequalities have affected the functioning of formal systems of justice in the state. We use a novel dataset of more than 1 million cases filed at the Patna high court between 2009-2019 together with a variety of supplementary data to analyze the role of religion, caste and gender in the high court of Bihar. We find that the courts are not representative of the Bihari population. Muslims, women and scheduled castes are consistently under-represented. The practice of using “caste neutral” names is on the rise. Though there is little evidence of “matching” between either judges and petitioners or between judges and filing advocates on the basis of names, we do find evidence that petitioners and their advocates match on the basis of identity such as the use of “caste neutral” names. These results suggest that the social movements which disrupted existing social structures in the past may have inadvertently created new social categories that reinforce networks and inequalities in the formal justice system.
Work in Progress:
Determinants of Court Productivity in Highly Congested Settings: Evidence from India.
Courts and Informality Across Countries (with D. L. Chen & J. Lee)
Judges, Points and Old Cases: Dynamic Incentives in Indian Lower Courts (with S. Bhupatiraju & D. L. Chen)