Dismantling the Legacy of Caste - Centre For Development Economics

action will almost surely attend colleges with weaker peers than they would attend with affirmative
action. Such colleges would also then be less likely to be able to attract the more able among college
faculty.
The above logic suggesting that our counterfactual analysis understates the benefits of
affirmative action for disadvantaged castes, also implies that we likely understate the adverse effects of
affirmative action on advantaged castes. It is possible, however, that mixing weaker and stronger students
in the same classes may make curriculum targeting more difficult (Duflo, Dupas, and Kremer (2010)) for
teachers. The preceding discussion makes clear that the counterfactual calculations, while informative,
should be viewed as suggestive with respect to assessing the magnitude of the effects of affirmative
action.
7. Conclusions
We conclude that the exceptional database we have assembled, and our estimated achievement
and attendance models, provide compelling evidence that affirmative action in Indian engineering
colleges increases college attendance and achievement of members of disadvantaged castes.
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