Rajib Rahman

Welcome

Hello and Welcome to my webpage!

My name is Rajib Rahman, and currently I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My research focuses on empirical industrial organization, public policy, and health economics.

My work has been published in the European Review of Agricultural Economics, and another manuscript received a R&R at the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

I use large-scale retail market data to study how consumers and firms respond to regulation. In particular, I examine dynamic interplay between sales, advertising strategies, front-of-package nutrition labeling, and national health, food, and nutrition policies. Through this work, I aim to provide insights into how these forces shape consumer choices and industry practices.

I hold a M.Sc. in Mathematics from Western Illinois University, and Bachelor degree in Economics from the esteemed University of Dhaka.

Here is my CV and JMP.

Publications

Christoph Bauner, Rajib Rahman, The effect of front-of-package nutrition labelling on product composition, European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2024;, jbae004, https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbae004

Media: X(twitter)_thread, France Bleu, LaProvence, 20Minutes, Yahoo News, Pourquoidocteur , radio france: france inter
Top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric, top 2% of all outputs of the same source , top most than of all outputs of the same age & source (link)

Gimire, Shankar, Kul Kapri, and Md Rajib-Ur Rahman. Imitate or innovate? FDI, technology, and income levels in middle income countries, Journal of Development Innovations 2.1 (2018): 1-13
Khalily, MAB, Md. Abdul Khaleque, Meherun Ahmed, Sayema H. Bidisha, Farhanaz Sharmin, Md. Rajib-Ur-Rahman. “Access to Financial Services in Bangladesh-A Demand Side Analysis (Phase – I).” Institute of Microfinance(InM) Working paper series- 12(2011)

Working Papers

The Effect of Singapore's Sugar-Sweetened-Beverage Advertising Ban on Product Entry (with Christian Rojas)- Revised & Resubmitted at AJAE. (link)
Advertising Strategies and Effectiveness of Traditional Advertising under Soda Tax Policy (link)- Job Market Paper

Teaching

Instructor, University of Massachusetts Amherst

RESECON 212: Introductory Statistics for Business and Economics Summer, 2023-25

Teaching Assistant, University of Massachusetts Amherst

RESECON 323: Financial Analysis for Consumers and Firms Fall 2025

RESECON 453: Public Policy in Private Markets Spring 2025

RESECON 112: Computing: Foundations to Frontiers Fall 2024

RESECON 202: Price Theory Fall 2023

RESECON 313: Decision Analysis Fall 2023, 2024

RESECON 212: Introductory Statistics for Business and Economics 2019-2023, Spring 2023
RESECON 452: Industrial Organization Spring 2021

Lab Instructor, Western Illinois University

MATH 099: Intermediate Algebra 2017-2019

Teaching Assistant, Western Illinois University 2016-2019

Econ 232: Principles of Microeconomics,

Econ 231: Principles of Macroeconomics,

DS200: Introduction to Business Analytics,

Math 128: Precalculus Algebra,

Math 137: Applied Calculus I.

Job Market Paper

Advertising Strategies and Effectiveness of Traditional Advertising under Soda Tax Policy (Link)

I estimate the causal effects of Berkeley, California’s soda tax policy, passed in November 2014, on firms' advertising strategies and advertising elasticity in Berkeley across major diet and regular soda brands. Using weekly sales and advertising spending data from 2014 to 2015, I employ a combination of a difference-in-differences framework and a border-market strategy to identify causal impacts. While existing literature provides evidence of advertising effectiveness across various products from a marketing perspective, I examine how this effectiveness changes under soda tax policies, a public health tool frequently used to mitigate the health risks of excessive sugar intake from soft drink consumption. I find evidence that the long-run own traditional advertising elasticity of regular soda declined by 0.023, falling from a pre-policy value of 0.014 to a post-policy elasticity of –0.009. This indicates that advertising became not only less effective but potentially counterproductive in the taxed category compared to untaxed beverages. I also find evidence that firms reduced advertising spending for regular soda by approximately 16.4% overall, with declines of 16.1% and 39.2% relative to diet soda and light beer, respectively, in the post-policy Berkeley. Additionally, firms adopted spatial marketing strategies, reducing advertising spending near Berkeley while increasing it in more distant areas. These findings offer new insights into soda tax policies and have important implications for manufacturers' pricing and marketing strategies, as well as for policymakers regarding public health outcomes.

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