Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

The aims of this report are to highlight the shortcomings in medical education. To use a student made short film as an example of how issues that cause medical student distress can be displayed. To show that the process of film-making is a useful tool in reflection. To display that film is an effective device in raising awareness.

Courts are considered important in the functioning of markets, and yet, there is limited causal evidence showing this. In my dissertation, I explore the causal role of judicial institutions in facilitating economic development outcomes. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I estimate the causal effects of courts’ effectiveness in backlog resolution on formal sector firm outcomes, illustrating ex-post contract enforcement in local credit markets as an important channel. To show this, I construct a novel panel dataset on court-level variables from 6 million trial-level data across 195 district courts in India and exploit quasi-random variation in judge vacancy for causal identification. There are three key implications of this chapter. First, reducing marginal judge vacancy reduces court backlog by 6%. Second, this stimulates bank lending in local credit markets through improved liquidity from debt recoveries. Third, this affects credit availability, production, and profitability of firms located within the court’s jurisdiction. The results imply an 8:1 benefit to cost ratio of reducing marginal judge vacancy.

In the second chapter, I discuss the interaction between legal reforms in bankruptcy resolution and judicial capacity through the enforcement of creditor rights in trial courts on credit allocation in local markets. Poor creditor rights constrain the functioning of credit markets, that subsequently affects the availability of credit for productive uses. Can well-functioning courts facilitate the enforcement of creditor rights? How does this affect credit allocation? To study this, I use a difference in difference research design by comparing districts with high judge occupancy and those with low occupancy, before and after the 2016 national legislation on bankruptcy resolution in India that increased the rights of the creditors over stressed assets. There are three key findings. First, banks reduce lending towards unproductive uses such as lending to defaulting firms and increase lending based on capital efficiency in districts with better judicial capacity. Second, improved creditor rights coupled with better judicial capacity increases repayment. Third, banks are more likely to initiate and witness resolution of debt recovery related litigation in districts with better judicial capacity after the bankruptcy reform, suggesting that enforcement of creditor rights in well functioning trial courts plays an important complementary role. Finally, the chapter concludes by examining credit misallocation, showing that good quality formal institutions are insufficient to fully address existing misallocation.

How does judge vacancy affect trial-level and litigant outcomes? Emerging economies like India suffer from state capacity constraints that affect economic outcomes. While insufficiency in the number of public teachers and doctors in providing human capital development services has received increasing attention in economics, capacity constraints in the judiciary has rarely been discussed. In the third chapter, I examine the role of judge vacancy on the proceedings of ongoing trials and subsequent effects on litigant outcomes in India. The system of annual judge assignment to district courts shifts the existing high level of vacancies across courts that varies orthogonally to existing trial and litigant outcomes, enabling causal identification. There are following main findings: first, the duration of trial increases when an ongoing trial experiences judge vacancy relative to other trials in the same court that do not. Second, this shock negatively affects wage bill and decreases the asset value of plaintiff firms whereas the effects are smaller and statistically indistinguishable from zero for defendant firms. Third, the large negative effect for plaintiff firms is likely to occur due to increase in the number of dismissals resulting from vacancy. Given that smaller firms are more likely to use the formal judicial system as a plaintiff in the case of transactional disputes relative to larger firms, weaker judicial capacity disproportionately affects them leading to equity concerns.

Through these chapters, I show that judicial institutions play an important role in an economy. My approach to answering these macro questions involves using disaggregated and rich administrative data that enable me to shed light on the underlying mechanisms linking institutional quality and economic outcomes.

Design and implementation of a novel ultra-low power (ULP) operational

transconductance amplifier (OTA) meant for recording Electrocorticography signals is

presented in this thesis. The design of the amplifier is done in weak inversion (or subthreshold) region of operation of MOSFET and was fabricated in IBM 130 nm standard

CMOS process. This thesis discusses the design and measurement challenges associated

with analog/mixed signal design in this region of operation. The ULP closed loop fully

differential OTA is designed for voltage gain of 40 dB for a frequency ranging from 15 Hz to

270 Hz with input referred noise voltage less than 5 uVrms across bandwidth of operation.

Total power dissipation for the novel complementary OTA structure designed in weak

inversion region is measured to be 216 nW for a supply of 0.4 V.

An understanding of household finance in rural communities is vital to poverty reduction strategies in the developing world. Informal moneylenders continue to occupy a large part of the financial landscape in many developing countries, and policy interventions often focus on reducing the need for informal debt. In this dissertation, I focus on rural India, and study the interaction between the formal and informal financial sectors, how credit and savings policies impact local rural labor markets, and how labor market policies impact local credit markets.

In the first chapter, I study the relationship between formal and informal credit markets. These two sectors might either compete with each other, or be embedded in a vertical relationship with informal lenders on-lending formal loans, or both. I test this by analyzing whether credit market responses to demand shocks vary across environments with high and low supplies of formal credit. Exploiting rainfall shocks as exogenous changes to household incomes, I find that increases in incomes raise household borrowing from informal sources primarily due to higher borrowing for purchases of durable goods. This increase in borrowing is accompanied by an increase in informal loan interest rates, pointing to a demand response. I then exploit plausibly exogenous variation in formal credit supply, and find that the demand responses previously observed are absent when there are contractions in formal credit, suggesting complementarities between formal and informal credit. I validate this through a qualitative survey of informal moneylenders, who indicate using loans from banks as lending capital. These results suggest that informal moneylenders play an intermediating role between borrowers and formal financial institutions, contributing to their persistence in the credit landscape.

In the second chapter, I turn to credit market policy interventions. Federal and state governments in India have relied on women’s self-help groups (SHGs) to provide access to low-cost credit and savings with the dual intent of financial inclusion and women’s empowerment. I focus on one such SHG initiative in the state of Bihar, Jeevika, and exploit the randomized roll-out of the program to evaluate its impact on women’s labor supply. I find that the program had mixed effects across caste categories. Women from more privileged households increased their labor supply, while both women and men from disadvantaged households decreased their labor supply. The decline in labor supply among disadvantaged households is driven by reduced participation in agricultural wage labor, and is associated with an increase in agricultural labor wage rates. These results suggest that better access to finance reduces the need to sell labor as a coping mechanism for women from more vulnerable households; while allowing women from privileged households to increase their participation in more ‘suitable’ occupations.

In the third chapter, I explore the credit market impacts of changes in labor markets. In the rural Indian context, both informal loans and participating in casual wage labor allow households to cope with unanticipated income shocks. In 2006, the Government of India introduced the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which guaranteed each rural household 100 days of paid manual wage labor each year — increasing opportunities for these households. I develop a theoretical model of household borrowing, and derive testable predictions of how such an improvement in labor market opportunities might impact a household’s demand for credit, and the interest rates at which informal loans are contracted. I then exploit the staggered nature of the roll-out of this program to test these predictions. I find that access to NREGS allowed households to increase consumption expenditures, but had no significant effects on their informal borrowing. Unsurprisingly, the program also did not impact interest rates or the number of lenders in the informal market. These results, however, reflect short-term effects, and it is likely that over the longer-term, credit market relationships will evolve with the quality of NREGS.