Kasim Saiyyad

Publications

My research spans social protection, labor economics, and nutrition in India. Below are my published and forthcoming academic papers, working papers, and my first book. For policy articles and media writing, see the Extension tab.

Job Market Paper

  • Saiyyad, K. N. “Cash Transfers and Public Employment: Does Recipient Gender Matter?”

Cash transfers across multiple countries report null labor supply effects, but few vary recipient gender and none operates in a guaranteed employment setting. We exploit two concurrent transfers in 50 villages of Maharashtra, India: a male-directed transfer to landowners, identified by a cluster-randomized encouragement design, and a female-directed transfer to enrolled women, identified by a natural experiment. The male transfer produces no detectable effect on the employment guarantee for either gender. The female transfer reduces women’s days on the program by 3.3 days in the first season and 1.6 per season over five seasons. Recipient gender, not magnitude, drives the asymmetry.

Published

  • Saiyyad, K. N. (2026). “Cash Transfers and Employment Guarantees: Substitutes, Complements, or Both?” Oxford Handbook of Guaranteed Minimum Income Policies, Oxford University Press (accepted).
This chapter examines the relationship between India’s cash transfer schemes and the MGNREGA employment guarantee, asking whether these programs function as substitutes or complements for rural households. It draws on both theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence to assess how multiple safety net programs interact in practice.
  • Saiyyad, K. N. (2017). “Leveraging Women’s Empowerment and Entrepreneurship for Targeting Malnutrition.” Sight and Life, vol. 31(2).
Drawing on field experience from the SFurtI flour fortification program in tribal Gujarat, this article explores how women’s Self-Help Groups can serve as delivery channels for nutrition interventions while simultaneously building women’s economic agency and community leadership.

Working Papers

  • Saiyyad, K. N. (2026). ” Do unconditional cash transfers raise rural women’s reservation wage enough to reduce distress agricultural-labor supply and seasonal circular migration?” (Working paper)

India’s expanding cash-transfer architecture delivers unconditional income to rural households, but its effect on women’s labor allocation is poorly understood. Using an original three-round panel of 800 women across 50 villages in the Bramhapuri belt of Vidarbha, India, I estimate how cash transfers shape the extensive and intensive margins of women’s farm-labor supply and short-term circular migration.  

  • Saiyyad, K. N. (2026). “Effect of Gendered Cash Transfers on Labor Participation, Dietary Diversity, and Financial Outcomes of Women in Rural India.” (Working paper)

Estimates the causal impact of gendered cash transfers on three dimensions of women’s welfare: labor force participation, household dietary diversity, and control over financial resources.

Books

  • Saiyyad, K. N. (2026). Gigged: Lives on the Edge of the Platform. (under contract)

Based on two months of immersive fieldwork as a delivery rider and over 50 in-depth interviews with gig workers across different platforms and Indian cities, this book documents the lived realities of platform work, including earnings precarity, algorithmic control, and the factors that draw workers into the gig economy.