Other links:
Other links:
Ashoka University’s undergraduate course curriculum is taught across three semesters: Spring, Summer and Monsoon (Fall). Courses are broadly divided into three categories – Foundation Courses (core curriculum), Major & Minor Courses and Co-Curricular Courses.
You may search courses offered at Ashoka here. Please use the drop down menu to choose the specific semester and subject to see the full list of courses under each department. Foundation courses are offered in all semesters and do not have prerequisites. Offerings in other categories differ in each semester. Some higher level major/minor courses may have prerequisites.
To view Summer Semester Courses-2024: Click here
About the Course
This course familiarizes students with theories and empirical tools to understand and measure economic discrimination based on social group identities, such as caste, race, gender, tribal status, ethnicity and so on. The course will focus on evidence related to caste and sex in India.
The first part of the course will take students through theories of discrimination such as statistical discrimination and taste for discrimination, based on the work of Kenneth Arrow, Gary Becker and George Akerlof. This will lead to a discussion of the overlap between economics of discrimination and related sub-disciplines that are relatively new but are rapidly expanding, viz., “Identity Economics”, pioneered by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton, “Feminist Economics”, and “Stratification Economics”.
The second section will introduce students to concepts in social psychology such as stereotype threat and implicit bias that produce discriminatory outcomes.
The third part of the course introduces students to some of the key methods of empirically gauging discrimination in market settings. This section would familiarize students with decomposition analyses applied to the labour market (what part of the wage gap between two groups is due to differences in abilities, and what part is due to discrimination), using standard techniques from Labour Economics. We would also discuss experimental methods – both field-based as well as lab-based experiments to gauge discrimination outside the labour market (e.g. housing market), or in the field of charitable giving, or even in labour markets but during the job search process (before applicants find jobs).
Students will be familiarized with literature that applies these methods in the Indian context, particularly to the study of caste and gender discrimination.
The final part of the course will deal with policy options to deal with group-based disparities and discrimination, with a focus on affirmative action policies. This section will outline the various types of affirmative action, including quotas or reservation, and discuss debates around affirmative action, focusing on evidence-based research gauging its impact.
