Research Interests:
Macroeconomics
Economic Growth
Development Economics
Regional and Urban Economics
Indian Economy
Published Papers
Do Racist Attitudes and Behaviors Impede Economic Growth? Cross-national and Regional Evidence, Accepted to be published in Public Choice (2025) [Find here]
--with Chandan Jha & Swarup Joshi
The paper explores the association between racial attitude and economic growth at cross country level as well as the European sub-national level using World Value Survey data. We find a significant negative relationship between racial attitude and economic growth both at national and sub-national levels.
Subnational governments and COVID management, Economic Modelling (2023) [Find here]
-- with Simanti Bandopadhyay & Subrata Majumdar
We investigate the efficiency of COVID management in USA, India, and Mexico, and explore the extent to which state government finances, socio-demographic, and governance indicators can explain the difference in efficiency.
Shedding light on regional growth and convergence in India, World Development (2020) [pdf]
-- with Areendam Chanda
Using radiance-calibrated night lights data, we investigate patterns of growth both at the aggregated district level, and along rural and urban dimensions.
Measuring the Effect of Misallocation on Productivity in Indian Manufacturing: A Gross Output Approach, Asian Development Review (2020)[pdf]
We study distortions in input and output markets as sources of misallocation in the Indian manufacturing sector using data from both formal and informal firms.
Working Papers
Regional luminosity growth and convergence across districts in India: A spatial econometric approach
--with Carlos Mendez & Jiaqi Li
We investigate the role of spatial spillovers in regional convergence through the lens of satellite imagery, interactive visualizations, and spatial modeling. We find that spatial spillovers significantly increased the speed of district-level convergence in India during 1996-2010.
Banks, Sectoral Credit, and Local Economic Growth
-- with Areendam Chanda
We investigate the effects of bank credit on long-run economic growth in Indian districts during 1996-2010 using satellite night lights data. Exploiting variation in the sectoral allocation of loans at the district level as a measure of credit growth we find no significant effects of credit supply on growth
Work in Progress
Regional growth and heterogeneous convergence in India: An extended view from outer space
-- with Carlos Mendez & Jiaqi Li
We investigate the pattern of spatial convergence in districts of India using a geographically weighted regression model from 2001 -2019. We use newly extended nighttime lights to find faster convergence in the northern, eastern, and Northeastern districts and slower convergence in the western, and southern districts.
Civil Unrest and Public Policy: Evidence from India
-- with Ishita Tripathi
We investigate a relationship between government welfare programs and Left-Wing extremist insurgencies in India using a spatial discontinuity model. We find significantly lower occurrences of violence in districts treated with welfare programs in two of the most affected states such as Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
Does Income Inequality Affect Economic Reforms?
-- With Chandan Jha & Bibhu Datta Panda
We investigate whether income inequality has an impact on the adoption of reforms adopting a cross-country analysis.
Growth Pattern in Midwest States from Outer Space
We study the pattern of growth at the US county level, specifically for the Midwest states including Wisconsin, using satellite night lights data for the years 1992-2013.