Impact of Caregiver Incentives on Child Health: Evidence from an Experiment with Anganwadi Workers in India

CASI Seminar

CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar

Prakarsh Singh
Assistant Professor of Economics, Amherst College
Center for the Advanced Study of India
3600 Market Street, Suite 560 (5th floor)
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104

About the Speaker:
Prakarsh Singh is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Amherst College. He works on personnel economics of the state and has carried out multiple field experiments targeting child malnutrition in India in association with Indian state governments—testing the impact of performance-based incentives for public health workers. He has published in The Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, The Economics of Education Review, The Journal of Development Studies, Journal of African Economies, Defence and Peace Economics, The Economics of Peace and Security Journal, and The Journal of Economic Education. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 2011, where he also earned an MRes. and a BSc. in Economics.

About the Lecture:
Prakarsh Singh will discuss how performance pay to caregivers in India can make a difference to the lives of poor children in urban slums—finding that performance pay reduces the prevalence of underweight children by five percentage points over three months and height improves by about one centimeter.

[Event Flyer]

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.