Women's mobility is severely restricted in many cities in developing countries. We study these constraints in the setting of a unique policy in Delhi, India, that made public buses free for women citywide and added bus marshals on all buses. Using detailed panel survey data for a sample of women with low socio-economic status, we cannot detect an effect of the policy on mobility, despite a large citywide increase in female bus ridership and high policy awareness. In a randomized experiment before the citywide policy, we delivered a free one-month bus pass to women in the same sample. We find large effects on overall mobility that persist after the citywide policy is enacted and the bus pass becomes obsolete. These results are consistent with large individual-level frictions in mobility behavior that can be relaxed by a personalized intervention.

Speaker:

Professor Gabriel Kreindler is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Before joining in Harvard University, he was the member of Saieh Family Fellows in Economics of Becker Friedman Institute at University of Chicago. He studies issues in urban transportation in developing countries. His current projects focus on understanding the impact of traffic congestion management policies in large cities in developing countries through natural and field experiments. Professor Kreindler received his PhD in Economics from MIT in 2018.