Aashay Tripathi
Affiliations
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Sessional Instructor
Graduate Research Assistant
Contact information
Phone number
Cell: 4034017371
Location
Office: SS405
Background
Educational Background
M.Sc. Economics, University of Warwick, UK, 2015
B.A.(Honors) Economics, University of Delhi, 2013
Research
Areas of Research
Courses
| Course number | Course title | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| Econ/Engg 209 | Engineering Economics | Spring 2023 |
| Econ 203 | Principles of Macroeconomics | Spring 2025 |
Projects
While residential schools in North America have long been dismantled, India continues to expand its own residential school system, with a stated aim of "closing the gap" in education between Indigenous students and their peers. I provide the first causal evidence of the effect of enrollment in a residential school on the educational attainment of Indigenous women in India. Applying triple-difference and instrumental-variable strategies to a newly constructed dataset, I find that school exposure reduces educational attainment by up to 4 years. The result is driven by disruptions to family dynamics. Crowding out of day-school options by residential schools, along with mandatory residence at these schools, forces Indigenous girls to cancel enrollment, raising dropout rates due to domestic work obligations by 10 percentage points.
In collaboration with Arvind Magesan, Sacha Kapoor, and Michael Vlassopoulos, this project investigates the mechanisms/factors that mediate the relationship between Indigenous education (in India) and political engagement. To understand these mechanisms, we explore two questions:
- How does access to state-sponsored Indigenous education affect political participation and representation?
- How do language policies within schools shape broader political integration?
We exploit quasi-random assignment of schools to blocks above specific thresholds to estimate causal effects using a regression discontinuity design. Administrative electoral data provide outcomes on turnout, candidate representation, and party performance. At the same time, original surveys identify mechanisms through knowledge tests, attribution questions, and measures of voting costs when schools serve as polling stations.
Anti-poverty programs generally reduce political violence in conflict-prone areas. However, these programs are tools of the state, and the state is often a party to the conflict, raising potential questions about the nuances of politics and program effectiveness. Focusing on India’s NREGA program, which guaranteed labour income and was rolled out nationally from 2005 to 2008, I investigate how political alignment between local elected representatives and the ruling government affects the program’s impact in conflict-prone areas. Using a difference in discontinuity design, I find that political alignment results in higher levels of Naxalite violence in constituencies exposed to NREGA. This increased violence is due to conflicts between state forces and rebel groups, suggesting that effective program implementation in aligned constituencies threatens rebel recruitment from poorer populations. To test this mechanism, I apply the same strategy to India’s identity-based insurgency in the northeast, where rebel groups do not disproportionately recruit from poorer segments. I find no difference in the effect of alignment between exposed and unexposed constituencies.
Awards
- Insights Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2025
- Best Student Research Paper, Economics Profession Data Committee, Canadian Economics Association. 2025
- Best Graduate Student Poster, Canadian Economics Association. 2025
- Eyes High International Doctoral Scholarship, University of Calgary. 2025
- Doctoral Completion Scholarship, University of Calgary. 2024
- PhD Teaching Assistant Excellence Prize, Department of Economics. 2023
- Anton and Delgarno Memorial Graduate Scholarship, Department of Economics. 2020
- Graduate Alumni Scholarship, Department of Economics. 2018
Are you the profile owner?
Login to edit.