Essays on Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability

The thesis consists of four chapters on economic development and environmental sustainability. The first chapter is a randomized controlled trial study that uses loss framing and information nudges to increase secondary school attendance in a district called Gaibandha in Bangladesh. While the Information treatment arm is the most cost-effective intervention from a policy maker’s perspective, the difference between the Loss and the conventional Gain treatment is not statistically significant. The second chapter identifies the causal impact of alcohol consumption on incidence of intimate partner violence in India. Instrumenting alcohol consumption by the state wise variation in alcohol ban and minimum legal drinking age, it is found that alcohol consumption by the husband leads to a significant increase in incidence of both less severe and severe physical violence. The third chapter looks at the impact of the mid day meal program in India on parental investment in education. Exploiting the state wise variation in the implementation of the program, we find that exposure to the mid day meal scheme leads to a drop in school fees, due to transfer of students from private schools to government schools. The fourth chapter explores Singapore’s sustainability issues in the areas of land, transport, water, waste, and energy and provides policy recommendations moving forward.