Working Papers
“Groundwater depletion and labor reallocation: evidence from India” (Job Market Paper)
India, the world's largest groundwater user, faces a critical challenge: unsustainable groundwater depletion. This study examines the causal impact of groundwater depletion on labor reallocation from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors. Using instrumental variables approach and granular data, I show that dryness, measured by deviations from historical rainfall patterns, significantly reduces the share of agricultural labor. This decline is related to decreased agricultural productivity and intensified irrigation practices. Dryness also exerts downward pressure on nonagricultural wages, suggesting broader effects on the labor market. Furthermore, road and market densities moderate the impact of dryness on agricultural labor share, highlighting the role of infrastructure in facilitating labor reallocation. These findings shed light on the complex dynamics between groundwater depletion, labor reallocation, and wage structures in India.
“Policy interventions and agricultural outcomes: evaluating the NSFM's impact on wheat production in India” (with Kyle Emerick)
We evaluate the causal impact of India's National Food Security Mission (NFSM) on wheat production using a combined Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) and Dynamic Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach. The RDD leverages the discontinuity of the 2012 NFSM expansion eligibility at the 50,000 hectares wheat area threshold. DID incorporates both 2007 and 2012 program waves. We find a significant increase in wheat area (51.59%) and production (49.0%) in eligible districts, with no impact on yield. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness. This study fills a gap by providing rigorous causal evidence for the effectiveness of NFSM in increasing wheat production. The combined approach strengthens causal inference and offers policy insights. Expanding the NFSM and incorporating yield-improving measures can enhance the impact of the program, informing future interventions for food security.
"Natural Capital and Labor Reallocation under Persistent Climate Stress: Evidence from Irrigation and Groundwater in India"
Productive natural capital is assumed to provide adaptive capacity: an asset that raises farm output should also cushion rural economies against climate stress. This paper asks whether it does at the labor margin of structural transformation. In an Indian district panel, a one-standard-deviation increase in decade-scale dryness is associated with a 0.8 percentage-point fall in the share of rural households primarily in agriculture. The association is not detectably moderated by predetermined irrigation dependence, a composite measure of access to water-based infrastructure. The non-parametric profile does slope in the direction the hypothesis predicts (the effect is strongest in the least-irrigated districts and weakest in the most-irrigated), but no linear, quintile, source-specific or extraction-cost specification separates that gradient from zero, and the design could only detect moderation of 0.028 or larger. If irrigation buffers the labor response, the buffering is too weak or too noisy to detect here. The accompanying pattern is contraction rather than opportunity: yields fall, credit tightens, and wages decline in both origin and destination sectors. I identify no causal effect of groundwater or irrigation. Productive and adaptive functions of natural capital need not coincide at the labor margin, at least not to a degree this design can measure.
Selected Work in Progress
“Rationing of production and separability failure in the Agricultural household model.”
“Agricultural Development and Environmental Quality in India” (with Kyle Emerick and Marina M. Ngoma)