Publications

Books

• Demography and Religion in India Oxford University Press, 2002.

Abstract
This book examines the interactions between religion, economics and demography. The book asks: Do religious beliefs significantly affect demographic behaviour, even after controlling for the socio-economic characteristics of populations?  It examines the theological content of Islam and Hinduism in the context of population growth. It also offers quantitative evidence that religious differences in fertility and two of its proximate determinants, contraceptive choice and the age at marriage, are in fact, due to differences in socio-economic characteristics, such as access to education.  The econometric analysis is based on primary fieldwork and survey data collected on Hindu, Muslim, and Christian women in India. The determinants of women's age at marriage, their contraceptive choices and their fertility are modelled and then analysed, drawing inferences for population policy, religion, social conflict, and economic development. This book would be of interest to economists, demographers, development researchers, gender specialists and anthropologists. Further information
 

Papers

• The Economics of Consanguineous Marriages (with Q. Do and S. Joshi), forthcoming in The Review of Economics and Statistics.

• Dominance and Innovation: A Returns-Based Beliefs Approach (with Chander Velu and Jonathan Gair), forthcoming in Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, 2012.

• Real Options and Demographic Decisions, (with Chander Velu), Journal of Development Economics, Volume 80, Number1, June 2006, pp. 39-58.

• Vidya, Veda and Varna: The Influence of Religion and Caste on Education in Rural India, (with V. Borooah),  Journal of Development Studies, Volume 41, Number 8, November 2005, pp. 1369-1404.

• The Decomposition of Inter-Group Differences in a Logit Model: Extending the Oaxaca-Blinder Approach with an Application to School Enrolment in India (with V. Borooah), Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 30, Number 4, 2005, pp. 279-293.

• The Risk of Child and Adolescent Mortality among Vulnerable Populations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, (with M. Monteiro), Journal of Biosocial Science, Volume 36, Part 5, September, pp. 523-546, 2004.

• The Effectiveness of Jobs Reservation: Caste, Religion and Economic Status in India (with V. Borooah and A Dubey). Development and Change. Volume 38, Number 3, May 2007, pp. 423-445.

• Social Capital, Economic Growth and Regional Development, (with M. Kitson and B. Toh), Regional Studies, Volume 39, Number 8, pp. 1015-1040, November 2005.

• Religion, Reproduction and Development in Contemporary India, Development, Volume 46, Number 4, December, pp. 50-56, 2003.

• Religion and the Decision to use Contraception in India, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 41, Number 4, pp. 711-722, 2002.

• Religion, Literacy and the Female-to-Male Ratio, (with V. Borooah), Economic and Political Weekly, Volume 40, Number 5, pp. 419-427, 29 January 2005.

Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries

• 'Religion and Economic Development'. In Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume eds. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, May 2008.

• ‘Why Marry a Cousin? Insights from Bangladesh’ (with Q. Do and S. Joshi). In: Marriage in Globalizing Contexts: Exploring Change and Continuity in South Asia, Orient Black Swan, forthcoming 2012.

• 'Gender, Religion, and the Age at Marriage in India'. In Gender and Discrimination: Health, Nutritional Status and Role of Women in India, eds.M. Pal, P. Bharati, B. Ghosh and T.S. Vasulu, Oxford University Press, August 2009.

• 'Human Capital'. In David A. Clark ed. The Elgar Companion to Development Studies. Edward Elgar, October 2006, pp. 240-245.

New Papers

On Religion

• Divine Innovation: Religion and Service Provision by Religious Organizations in India (with Chander Velu and Tirthankar Chakravarty), Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1135, 2011.

          An article describing this research is featured in the Spring 2011 issue of the University of Cambridge's Research Horizons.

• The Communication and Marketing of Services by Religious Organisations in India (with Chander Velu and Abdul Mumit), Cambridge Working Papers in Economics, 1008, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, January 2012.

• Missing Women and India's Religious Demography (with V. Borooah and S. Joshi), May 2011. An earlier version is in World Bank Policy Research Working Papers, No. 5096, November 2009.

On Game Theory and Rationality

• A Reason for Unreason: Returns-Based Beliefs in Game Theory (with Chander Velu and Jonathan Gair), Cambridge Working Papers in Economics, 1058, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, October 2011.

• The Evolution of Cooperation through Communication: A Field Experiment in Cambridge (with Chander Velu and Abdul Mumit), May 2011.

On Economic Demography

• Social Interactions, Ethnicity and Fertility in Kenya (with Melvyn Weeks), 2011. An earlier version is in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0903, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

Other Writing

• The Marshall Lectures 2010-11: James J. Heckman - The Economics and Psychology of Human Development and Inequality (with Tony Cockerill). Cambridge Economics Alumni Newsletter, Volume 4, September 2011.

• The Marshall Lectures 2009-10: Drew Fudenberg - Learning and Equilibrium in Games (with Tony Cockerill). Cambridge Economics Alumni Newsletter, Volume 3, September 2010.

• Faith, Fertility and the Field Economist, The British Academy Review, Number 7, pp. 33-35, 2003.

Current Research Grants

I. Spiritual Capital Research Program (Metanexus Institute and John F. Templeton Foundation, USA) project on 'Innovation and the Resilience of Religion' (2006-2009).

II. Isaac Newton Trust Research Grant (Isaac Newton Trust, UK) for project on 'Modernising the Madrasa in India' (2009-2012).