Essays on Institutional Change in India and Nepal

Résumé

This dissertation is composed of three independent chapters investigating issues related to institutional change in South Asia. All chapters adopt an empirical approach, relying on secondary data from multiple sources. The first chapter examines the implications of an aggressive family planning program conducted in India during the 1970s, leading to more than eight million sterilizations in just a few months. The findings reveal a substantial decrease in children's vaccinations afterwards, and additional evidence suggests it is due to a decline in trust. The second chapter explores the relation between patriarchy and women's empowerment over two decades marked by numerous reforms that granted additional rights to women in Nepal. Our findings indicate a growing heterogeneity in women's empowerment over time, despite overarching positive trends. Finally, the last chapter focuses on urban-rural measurement in Nepal. Motivated by on-the-ground observations of a proto-urbanization process by geographers, an urban intensity index is constructed to study population characteristics along a rural-urban continuum in 2011. Our results show strong monotonic relations, not visible with the classic urban-rural administrative dichotomy. Additionally, the last section demonstrates that relatively rural localities included in new administratively urban areas attracted more population and local economic activity in 2021, compared to similar neighboring entities, suggesting an effect related to the urban classification itself.

la date de réponse	21 déc. 2023
langue originale	Anglais
L'institution diplômante	Universite de Namur École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Sponsors	CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique & Bourse EOS (The Excellence of Science)
Superviseur	Jean-Marie Baland (Promoteur), Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann (Copromoteur), Sylvie Lambert (Président), Philippe De Vreyer (Jury), Joseph Flavian Gomes (Jury) & Karine Marazyan (Jury)