Prabhat Barnwal

Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Michigan State University

I use experimental and quasi-experimental methodologies in my empirical research.  My main areas of focus are energy/environment and economic development. In my recent and ongoing work on energy/environment, I study the efficiency and equity aspects of energy transition subsidies. I also study mitigation of environmental risks, focusing on specific, localized risks faced by households.  My research on economic development focuses on welfare delivery design and growth-oriented policy reforms in low-income settings.

Ph.D. Columbia University (2010-15)

Curriculum Vitae

MSU webpage: https://econ.msu.edu/about/directory/Barnwal-Prabhat 

Google Scholar 

Working papers

Timing the Transfer: Liquidity Constraints and the Transition to Clean Fuels. with Farzana Afridi, Chris Ahlin and Shreya Sarkar. Working paper, 2024. (draft under revision, available on request)

Internal Trade Barriers in India. with Jonathan Dingel, Pravin Krishna, Eva van Leemput, and Daniil Iurchenko. Working paper, 2024.

Informal Risk Sharing to Mitigate Local Environmental Risks. with Alexander van Geen and Yiqian Wang. Accepted, based on pre-results review, at the Journal of Development Economics. Eventual publication venue TBD.  

Banks and Informality: Evidence from Dual Balance Sheets of Microenterprises. with Ritam Chaurey, Reajul Chowdhury, and S. K. Ritadhi. Working paper, 2024.

Targeting through Social Norms: Experimental Evidence from India’s #GiveItUp Campaign. with Nicholas Ryan. Accepted, based on pre-results review, at the Journal of Development Economics. Eventual publication venue TBD. 

Publications

Curbing Leakage in Public Programs: Evidence from India's Direct Benefit Transfer Policy. American Economic Review, 2024.

• Transforming the Fight against Poverty In India, New York Times;  Charting a course for the Indian economy, Ideas for India; Big and small ideas in development economics: Theory, evidence and practice, Ideas for India.

Is Electrification in India Fiscally Sustainable?  with Nicholas Ryan.  India Policy Forum , vol. 20, 2023. 

• Despite decades of power reforms, discoms still an area of darkness, DBT-E would kill discoms' perverse incentives, Business Standard;  Is electrification in India fiscally sustainable? Ideas for India.

Democracy and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Indonesia. with Ama Baafra Abeberese, Ritam Chaurey, and Priya Mukherjee. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2023.

Assessment of Excess Mortality and Household Income in Rural Bangladesh During the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.  with Yuling Yao, Yiqian Wang, Nishat Akter Juy, Shabib Raihan, Mohammad Ashraful Haque, and Alexander van Geen. JAMA Network Open, 2021.

Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 Births across the Developing World. with Aaditya Dar, Ram Fishman, Gordon McCord, Nathan Mueller, and Jan von der Goltz. Journal of Health Economics, 2020.

Mines: The Local Wealth and Health Effects of Mineral Mining in Developing Countries. with Jan von der Goltz. Journal of Development Economics, 2019. 

Effectiveness of different approaches to arsenic mitigation over 18 years in Araihazar, Bangladesh: Implications for National Policy.  with Nadia B. Jamil, Huan Feng, Kazi Matin Ahmed, Imtiaz Choudhury, and Alexander van Geen. Environmental Science and Technology, 2019. 

• Global Drinking Water Best Paper Award 2020, TU Delft.

Demand for Environmental Quality Information and Household Response: Evidence from Well-water Arsenic Testing. with Alexander van Geen,  Jan von der Goltz, and Chander Kumar Singh. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2017. 

Climatic Impacts across Agricultural Crop Yield Distributions: An Application of Quantile Regression on Rice Crops in Andhra Pradesh, India. with Koji Kotani. Ecological Economics, 2013.

Selected work in progress

Women’s work and energy efficiency of home production (with Farzana Afridi and Taryn Dinkelman) 

ICT for Environmental Adaptation: Mitigating Arsenic Exposure in Bangladesh (with Michael Best, Ahasan Habib, Seung Min Kim, Alexander Van Geen, and Jack Willis) 

Household investment against environmental risks (with  Alexander Van Geen  and Yiqian Wang)

Insuring uncertain investments in preventative health: Deep wells to mitigate arsenic exposure in Bangladesh (with Alexander Van Geen and Jack Willis)

Bureaucracy and Governance (with Aaditya Dar, Aprajit Mahajan and Maitri Punjabi)

Does Serving the Poor Cause Corruption? (with Nicholas Ryan)

Projects resting for a while

Relighting Detroit: Impacts on Crime and Traffic Accidents  (with Soren Anderson , Elise Breshears , Dylan Brewer , Alex Tybl , and Anna Wood)