Research

Working Papers:

1) “ Firm Presence, Pollution, and Agglomeration: Evidence from a Randomized Environmental Place-Based Policy (with Michael Gechter)

2) “The Power of Persuasion: Causal Effects of Household Communication on Women’s Employment” (with Madeline McKelway) (revise and resubmit, JPE)

3) Environmental Permits, Regulatory Burden, and Firm Outcomes” with James Fenske and Muhammad Haseeb

4) “How Rules and Compliance Impact Organizational Outcomes: Evidence from Delegation in Environmental Regulation” (with James Fenske and Muhammad Haseeb) (revise and resubmit, JEEA)

5) “Mechanizing Agriculture” with Julieta Caunedo (revise and resubmit, AER). Vox Dev Article

6) “The Effects of Digital Surveillance and Managerial Clarity on Performance” with Elizabeth Lyons

7) “Learning, Adaptation and Climate Uncertainty: Evidence from Indian Agriculture” (previously circulated as “Ambiguity Aversion and Learning in a Changing World: The Potential Effects of Climate Change from Indian Agriculture”)

8) “Economies of Density and Congestion in Capital Rental Markets” with Julieta Caunedo and Haimeng Zhang

Published, Forthcoming or Accepted  Papers:

1)”Money (Not) to Burn: Payments for Ecosystem Services to Reduce Crop Residue Burning” (with Kelsey Jack, Seema Jayachandran, and Rohini Pande) (2025)AER: Insights

2) “The Impacts of Managerial Autonomy on Firm Outcomes” (2024). Econometrica.(Lead Article). Vox Dev Podcast 

3) “Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training” with Achyuta Adhvaryu and Anant Nyshadham (2023) Journal of Political Economy). Harvard Business Review Article

4) “Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity” with Achyuta Adhvaryu and  Anant Nyshadham  (2022) Journal of Political Economy (Lead Article). Visible Hand Podcast

5) “Railways and Cities in India” with James Fenske and Jinlin Wei Journal of Development Economics. Vox Dev Article

6) “Fetal Origins of Mental Health: Evidence from Africa” with Achyuta Adhvaryu, James Fenske, and Anant Nyshadham Economic Development and Cultural Change

7) “Linguistic Distance and Market Integration in India” with James Fenske (2021) The Journal of Economic History (Lead Article)

8) “The Green Revolution and Infant Mortality in India ” with Prashant Bharadwaj, James Fenske, and Rinchan Ali Mirza (2020) Journal of Health Economics

9) “The Light and the Heat: Productivity Co-benefits of Energy-saving Technology“with Achyuta Adhvaryu and Anant Nyshadham (2020) Review of Economics and Statistics. NPR Coverage

10) “Booms, Busts, and Household Enterprise: Evidence from Coffee Farmers in Tanzania” with Achyuta Adhvaryu and Anant Nyshadham (2019) World Bank Economic Review

11) “1807: Economic shocks, conflict and the slave trade” with James Fenske (2017) Journal of Development Economics

12) “Climate, ecosystem resilience and the slave trade” with James Fenske (2015) Journal of Development Economics

13) “The impact of climate change on agro-ecological zones: Evidence from Africa”  with Pradeep Kurukulasuriya and Robert Mendelsohn (2012). Environment and Development Economics, August, 2012. (Supplementary material)

14) “Adaptation And Climate Change Impacts: A Structural Ricardian Model Of Irrigation And Farm Income In Africa” with Pradeep Kurukulasuriya and Robert Mendelsohn (2011). Climate Change Economics, Volume: 2, Issue: 2,  pp. 149-174.

Other Papers:

1) “Detecting Crop Burning in India Using Satellite Data” with Kendra Walker, Ben Moscona, Kelsey Jack, Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande, Jiani Xue, and Marshall Burke

2) “Climate Adaptation” VoxDev Literature, with Clare Balboni and Shweta Bhogale

Projects in Progress:

1) “Building Support for Climate Mitigation Policies: A Field Experiment in Financial Markets”, with Michelle Hanlon, Saumitra Jha, Nemit Shroff, and Chagai Weiss

2) “The Impacts of Cold-storage Access on Agriculture” with Shweta Bhogale and Eleanor Wiseman

3) “The Impacts of Employee Recognition Rewards on Workers and Firms: The Role of Managerial Discretion vs. Worker Empowerment”, with Madeline McKelway