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Teacher Truancy in India: The Role of Culture, Norms and Economic Incentives

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  • Kaushik Basu

Abstract

Social scientists often emphasize how ‘culture’ and ‘social norms’ can be important determinants of economic behavior and development. This raises questions of the relative importance of economic incentives and these other more social variables, like culture, and of how they interact with one another. This paper uses some recent stylized facts concerning the problem of teacher truancy in India and constructs a simple model to illustrate the interaction between the ‘economic’ and the ‘social.’ It discusses how this enriches our view of policy-making for improving economic performance. [This is text of the Vera Anstey Memorial Lecture, delivered by the author at the 88th Annual Conference of the Indian Economic Association in Visakhapatnam, on 28 December 2005.] BREAD Working Paper 112. [The paper will appear in a forthcoming issue of Indian Economic Journal.]

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  • Kaushik Basu, 2006. "Teacher Truancy in India: The Role of Culture, Norms and Economic Incentives," Working Papers id:766, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:766
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    1. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg & Jörgen W. Weibull, 1999. "Social Norms and Economic Incentives in the Welfare State," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 1-35.
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    8. Kaushik Basu (ed.), 2004. "India's Emerging Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and Beyond," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025566, April.
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    11. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E, 1996. "The Evolution of Social Norms in Common Property Resource Use," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 766-788, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Edlund, Lena & Ku, Hyejin, 2011. "The African Slave Trade and the Curious Case of General Polygyny," MPRA Paper 52735, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Dec 2013.
    2. Vimala Ramachandran & Suman Bhattacharjea & K M Sheshagiri, 2011. "Primary School Teachers: The Twists and Turns of Everyday Practice," Working Papers id:4303, eSocialSciences.

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