This paper studies how legal control over property transfers shapes segregation and local amenities in developing-country cities. I examine Gujarat’s Disturbed Areas Act, a law requiring administrative approval for property sales in riot-affected areas, using new spatial data on designations linked to electoral rolls, housing projects, schools, and violence. Staggered event-studies show that designation targets Muslim-majority pockets in Hindu surroundings and hardens Hindu--Muslim boundaries: Hindu presence falls 5--6 percentage points and Muslim isolation rises. In heavily exposed areas, housing prices rise while school infrastructure and exam outcomes deteriorate, revealing that price growth need not reflect broad-based neighborhood improvement.

Abstract

We study whether local schooling markets in India exhibit tipping-point dynamics in student caste composition. Using near-universal administrative panel data on schools, we define villages as local schooling markets and estimate village-level composition thresholds from the relationship between baseline caste shares and subsequent enrollment flows, adapting the Card et al. (2008) fixed-point procedure to multi-school markets. We study two caste contrasts: upper-caste versus all disadvantaged groups combined, and intermediate-caste versus the most marginalized. Estimated thresholds differ sharply across contrasts and concentrate at very different baseline shares, indicating that tipping is boundary-specific rather than a generic feature of composition change. Around these thresholds, within-village school segregation rises discontinuously by 12% for the upper-caste comparison and 42% for the within-disadvantaged caste comparison. These are driven by resorting across schools within the local market rather than shifts in village composition. School inputs and public grant flows exhibit parallel discrete changes at the same thresholds, with per-student grants jumping by about 30%. Threshold locations are lower where caste identity is more salient and higher where schooling markets are thicker, though both gradients largely reflect state-level heterogeneity. Together, these findings show that institutional responses to composition amplify household sorting, generating a supply-side response that affects school quality. 

Abstract

I study how segregation and discrimination shape intergenerational mobility for Muslims in urban India. Combining new descriptive evidence on neighborhood quality, segregation, and mobility with a structural model of neighborhood choice and skill formation, I show that unequal access to better neighborhoods is a key source of persistent Hindu-Muslim inequality. The model highlights how mobility barriers today translate into lower human-capital accumulation and weaker economic outcomes across generations, particularly in contexts where exclusion is reinforced by formal spatial regulation. Counterfactuals imply that reducing discrimination in neighborhood access generates substantial gains in upward mobility, welfare, and income for Muslim households.