publications

2026

1. Stratified Modernisation: Caste, Gender, and Occupational Prestige in Urban India

   Ravikiran Naik and Samvardhini Ravindra

   Under review

   Caste operates as an occupational prestige hierarchy, yet caste disparities are usually measured only through wages and employment. Using India-calibrated occupational prestige scores built with the Nam-Powers-Boyd methodology and PLFS 2024 data, this paper finds residual prestige penalties of about 4 points for Scheduled Castes, 2.7 for Scheduled Tribes, and 2.2 for Other Backward Classes, and 5.3 points for women, after controlling for education, demographics, and state and industry fixed effects. Urban labour markets show larger caste and gender penalties than rural areas despite higher baseline prestige, a pattern the paper calls stratified modernisation.

   @unpublished{NR26,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Ravindra, Samvardhini},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Stratified Modernisation: Caste, Gender, and Occupational Prestige in Urban India},
     note = {Under review},
   }

2. Beyond Binary Access: Multidimensional Digital Deprivation and Caste in India

   Ravikiran Naik

   Under review

   India’s headline digital statistics suggest near-universal connectivity, but binary access metrics mask deep inequalities in how well people are connected and what they can do online. Using unit-level microdata from the NSS 80th Round Comprehensive Modular Survey on Telecom (2025, N = 106,631 adults), this paper constructs a Multidimensional Digital Deprivation Index across access, quality, skills, and functionality using the Alkire-Foster method. It finds that 78 percent of adults are multidimensionally digitally deprived, with Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and Other Backward Classes facing substantially higher deprivation than upper-caste groups, driven largely by the quality dimension.

   @unpublished{N26a,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Beyond Binary Access: Multidimensional Digital Deprivation and Caste in India},
     note = {Under review},
   }

3. Angry Enough to Redistribute? Beliefs and the Inequality–Redistribution Gap

   Ravikiran Naik

   Under review

   Most people worldwide say income differences are too large, yet how strongly they want government to act varies enormously. Using the ISSP 2019 (N = 34,204 across 29 countries), this paper shows that affective responses – anger about inequality and political cynicism – are among the strongest correlates of redistribution demand, while meritocratic beliefs and expected mobility central to the Benabou-Tirole and POUM frameworks are smaller and not robust to their inclusion. The perception-demand gap is widest where optimistic mobility beliefs are least warranted by actual data, suggesting the Meltzer-Richard puzzle is tied more to affect than to cognitive beliefs.

   @unpublished{N26b,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Angry Enough to Redistribute? Beliefs and the Inequality--Redistribution Gap},
     note = {Under review},
   }

4. Institutional Design and Quality Definitions in Indian Cinema: Evidence from Four Award Systems

   Ravikiran Naik

   What counts as the best film depends on who decides. Using newly compiled screenplay co-award data and logistic regression on 900 films across four Indian award institutions (1954-2025), this paper documents a gradient in the screenplay-Best Film overlap, from 93 percent at the Oscars down to 5-13 percent at the National Film Awards, separating institutions with broad electorates from a government-appointed expert jury. The overlap evidence, which requires no regression assumptions, shows that voting architecture shapes quality certification.

   @unpublished{N26c,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Institutional Design and Quality Definitions in Indian Cinema: Evidence from Four Award Systems},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

5. Beyond Education: What Explains Intergenerational Income Persistence in India?

   Ravikiran Naik

   This paper provides the first decomposition of India’s intergenerational earnings persistence into its transmission channels. Using the IHDS panel (2005-2012) and 6,183 matched father-child pairs, it estimates an intergenerational earnings elasticity of about 0.54, placing India among the least mobile economies, and finds that education and occupation account for only 19 percent of male earnings persistence – far below the United States, Great Britain, and China – rising to 46 percent once education-quality proxies are added. Most of the elasticity therefore works through unobserved channels such as wealth transfers, caste-based hiring networks, and marriage endogamy.

   @unpublished{N26d,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Beyond Education: What Explains Intergenerational Income Persistence in India?},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

6. Rule Design and Competitive Balance in T20 Cricket: Evidence from the IPL Impact Player Rule and the BBL Power Surge

   Ravikiran Naik and Srishtee Ramchandani

   Under review

   This paper asks whether the design of a rule change governs its effect on scoring and competitive balance, comparing two innovations in franchise Twenty20 cricket: the IPL’s Impact Player rule, which relaxes the eleven-player roster constraint, and the BBL’s Power Surge, which rearranges the fielding powerplay. Using ball-by-ball data from more than 1,900 matches and an interrupted time series design with difference-in-differences support, it finds the roster-relaxing rule raises scoring by roughly 8 percent while the fielding-restriction rule has no aggregate effect, and neither rule shifts win margins, leaving competitive balance intact.

   @unpublished{NR26b,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Ramchandani, Srishtee},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Rule Design and Competitive Balance in T20 Cricket: Evidence from the IPL Impact Player Rule and the BBL Power Surge},
     note = {Under review},
   }

7. Outflanked by Privatization: How Caste Advantage Evades Affirmative Action in India

   Ravikiran Naik

   Does educational expansion open the class structure of a society stratified by caste? Using the IHDS (2005 and 2011-12; 37,000 father-son pairs), this paper decomposes intergenerational class mobility and treats caste as a second axis of origin alongside class. Educational expansion did not raise social fluidity, and the direct caste advantage – concentrated entirely in the urban private sector, where upper-caste men are 2.6 times likelier than Scheduled-Tribe men to reach private salaried jobs – grows across generations. As good jobs shifted from public to private, caste advantage moved beyond the reach of affirmative action: reservations were outflanked by privatization.

   @unpublished{N26e,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Outflanked by Privatization: How Caste Advantage Evades Affirmative Action in India},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

8. Stepping Stone or Trap? Educational Mismatch and Occupational Mobility in Urban India

   Ravikiran Naik and Jeemol Unni

   Under review

   This paper tests whether overeducated workers use low-requirement jobs as stepping stones to better-matched occupations in India’s segmented labour market. Using a quarterly panel of 33,667 urban workers from the PLFS 2017-18, it finds overeducated workers have 83 percent higher odds of upward occupational mobility and 60 percent lower odds of demotion, with a similar gradient across formal and informal sectors but lower baseline mobility in informal employment. Upward movers are predicted to gain about 16 percent in wages, and the pattern replicates across three independent panels spanning 2005-2023.

   @unpublished{NU26,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Unni, Jeemol},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Stepping Stone or Trap? Educational Mismatch and Occupational Mobility in Urban India},
     note = {Under review},
   }

9. Economic Inequality, Institutional Trust, and Political Participation in India: Evidence from the India Human Development Survey

   Ravikiran Naik

   This paper examines how households’ position in the income distribution shapes institutional trust and political participation across rural and urban India, using household fixed-effects models on the IHDS panel (2004-05 and 2011-12) – to its knowledge the first within-household estimates of the inequality-trust-participation link in a developing democracy. Relative income position does not robustly predict governance trust once district heterogeneity is absorbed, but upward income mobility decreases interpersonal social trust, a social distancing pattern. Governance trust strongly predicts panchayat attendance and voting, with dense civic infrastructure redirecting trust erosion toward civic organisations rather than withdrawal.

   @unpublished{N26f,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2026},
     title = {Economic Inequality, Institutional Trust, and Political Participation in India: Evidence from the India Human Development Survey},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

2025

1. Canaries in the Code? AI Exposure and Employment in India

   Ravikiran Naik

   This paper examines the relationship between AI exposure and employment outcomes in India, providing evidence from a developing country context where labor market institutions, informality, and the nature of AI adoption may produce different employment effects.

   @unpublished{N25d,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2025},
     title = {Canaries in the Code? AI Exposure and Employment in India},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

2. Gender Differences in Returns to Education Mismatch

   Jeemol Unni and Ravikiran Naik

   In Women and Work: Challenges, Opportunities and Perspectives for Policy, 2025

   This chapter examines gender differences in returns to education mismatch in India, analyzing how the misalignment between educational qualifications and occupational requirements affects men and women differently in the labor market.

   @incollection{UN25,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2025},
     title = {Gender Differences in Returns to Education Mismatch},
     booktitle = {Women and Work: Challenges, Opportunities and Perspectives for Policy},
     publisher = {Springer Nature},
   }

3. Fighting the Double-Edged Sword: Innovation and Internationalisation of Emerging-Market Firms

   Abrar Ali Sayyad and Ravikiran Naik

   Under review at American Business Review

   This paper examines the relationship between innovation and internationalisation strategies of emerging-market firms, investigating how firms in developing economies navigate the dual challenges of innovating while expanding internationally.

   @unpublished{SN25,
     author = {Sayyad, Abrar Ali and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2025},
     title = {Fighting the Double-Edged Sword: Innovation and Internationalisation of Emerging-Market Firms},
     note = {Under review at American Business Review},
   }

4. Inter-generational Persistence and Role of Assortative Marriages in India

   Ravikiran Naik

   This paper examines inter-generational persistence of economic status and the role of assortative marriages in India, investigating how marriage patterns contribute to the reproduction of inequality across generations.

   @unpublished{N25c,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2025},
     title = {Inter-generational Persistence and Role of Assortative Marriages in India},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

5. The Double Penalty: Education-Occupation Mismatch and Wage Returns in India’s Formal and Informal Labour Markets

   Ravikiran Naik and Jeemol Unni

   This paper analyzes the returns to education-occupation mismatch in the presence of widespread informality in the Indian labor market, investigating how the informal sector mediates the relationship between educational qualifications, occupational placements, and earnings outcomes.

   @unpublished{NU25a,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Unni, Jeemol},
     year = {2025},
     title = {The Double Penalty: Education-Occupation Mismatch and Wage Returns in India's Formal and Informal Labour Markets},
     note = {Working paper},
   }

2024

1. Heterogeneity of Labour on Digital Platforms in India

   Jeemol Unni and Ravikiran Naik

   Economic & Political Weekly, 2024

   This paper examines the heterogeneity of labour on digital platforms in India. It analyzes how different platform types – delivery, transport, and service platforms – create varied labor market conditions and employment outcomes for workers.

   @article{UN24,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2024},
     title = {Heterogeneity of Labour on Digital Platforms in India},
     journal = {Economic \& Political Weekly},
   }

2023

1. Human Development and Disaster Mortality: Evidence from India

   Ravikiran Naik and Jeemol Unni

   Geophysical Journal International, 2023

   This paper examines the relationship between human development and disaster mortality in India. Using data across Indian states, the study demonstrates how variations in human development indices correlate with differential mortality outcomes from natural disasters.

   @article{NU23,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Unni, Jeemol},
     year = {2023},
     title = {Human Development and Disaster Mortality: Evidence from India},
     journal = {Geophysical Journal International},
   }

2022

1. Gender Differentials in Entrepreneurship: Insights from a Multi-method Study

   Jeemol Unni, Vanita Yadav, Ravikiran Naik, and 1 more author

   The Journal of Entrepreneurship, 2022

   This paper examines gender differentials in entrepreneurship using a multi-method approach that combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights.

   @article{UYND22,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Yadav, Vanita and Naik, Ravikiran and Datta, Swati},
     year = {2022},
     title = {Gender Differentials in Entrepreneurship: Insights from a Multi-method Study},
     journal = {The Journal of Entrepreneurship},
     volume = {31},
     number = {1},
     pages = {30--64},
   }

2021

1. Women Entrepreneurs In The New Indian Middle Class: Macro & Micro Perspectives

   Jeemol Unni, Vanita Yadav, Ravikiran Naik, and 1 more author

   2021

   This book provides a comprehensive analysis of women entrepreneurs in the new Indian middle class, combining macro-level quantitative survey data with micro-level qualitative insights.

   @book{UYND21,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Yadav, Vanita and Naik, Ravikiran and Datta, Swati},
     year = {2021},
     title = {Women Entrepreneurs In The New Indian Middle Class: Macro \& Micro Perspectives},
     publisher = {Orient Blackswan},
     isbn = {9789354421457},
   }

2013

1. Employment Vulnerability in the Urban Labour Market in India

   Ravikiran Naik and Jeemol Unni

   The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2013

   This paper examines employment vulnerability in the urban labour market in India, analyzing the patterns, determinants, and consequences of vulnerable employment across urban centers.

   @article{NU13a,
     author = {Naik, Ravikiran and Unni, Jeemol},
     year = {2013},
     title = {Employment Vulnerability in the Urban Labour Market in India},
     journal = {The Indian Journal of Labour Economics},
     volume = {56},
     number = {4},
     pages = {509--523},
   }

2. Measuring Informality of Employment in Urban India

   Jeemol Unni and Ravikiran Naik

   The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2013

   This paper develops and applies measures of informality of employment in urban India, proposing measurement frameworks that capture the multidimensional nature of informal employment.

   @article{UN13,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2013},
     title = {Measuring Informality of Employment in Urban India},
     journal = {The Indian Journal of Labour Economics},
     volume = {56},
     number = {4},
     pages = {493--508},
   }

2009

1. Gujarat’s Employment Story: Growth with Informality

   Jeemol Unni and Ravikiran Naik

   2009

   This book examines Gujarat’s employment trajectory, analyzing how the state’s rapid economic growth coexisted with persistent informality in the labor market.

   @book{UN09b,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2009},
     title = {Gujarat's Employment Story: Growth with Informality},
     publisher = {Oxford University Press},
     isbn = {9780199451180},
   }

2. Rural Structural Transformation: Case of the Service Sector in India

   Jeemol Unni and Ravikiran Naik

   Economic & Political Weekly, 2009

   This paper examines rural structural transformation in India through the lens of the service sector, analyzing how the growth and expansion of services in rural areas is reshaping economic structures and employment patterns.

   @article{UN09,
     author = {Unni, Jeemol and Naik, Ravikiran},
     year = {2009},
     title = {Rural Structural Transformation: Case of the Service Sector in India},
     journal = {Economic \& Political Weekly},
     volume = {46},
     number = {26--27},
   }