Sunil Jain: Partly in the affirmative

pers.nber.org/papers/w13926">http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13926) tries to give a longer perspective by looking at data for engineering colleges in one state (they don't say which) and interviewing a sample of the applicants to engineering colleges 8-10 years later. The analysis shows applicants tend to be 'creamy layer' for all social groups, not just for OBCs or SC/ST. Given the higher incomes of upper castes, not surprisingly, it found reservations along caste lines ended up also benefitting those who were economically less advantaged. Interestingly, it found, upper castes continued to do much better than SCs despite the reservations (81% of upper castes had jobs versus 79% for OBCs and 58% for SC; average incomes were Rs 17,706 for upper castes as compared to Rs 5,630 for SCs). More controversially, it found, that since lower caste engineers had lower salaries than upper caste ones as well as a lower chance of employment, at the national level, reservations lead to a loss in national income. It also found that socio-economic background matters hugely