Publications

Ocean Salinity, Early-Life Health, and Adaptation   with James Ji,  Zi Long, and Nidhiya Menon.

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2024

Coverage: Nature Climate Change

Mining and Women's Agency: Evidence on Acceptance of Domestic Violence and Shared Decision-Making in India  with  James Ji, Nidhiya Menon, and Yana Rodgers. 

World Development, 2023

Award:  2024 APEC Healthy women, Healthy Economies Research Prize, runner-up

 Short and Medium-Run Health and Literacy Impacts of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic in Brazil with Nidhiya Menon and Aldo Musacchio.

The Economic History Review, 2022

Coverage:  VOX LACEA, Medical Xpress, BrandeisNow, Folha de Sao Paulo

Working Papers

Climate Shocks, Intimate Partner Violence, and the Protective Role of Climate-Resilience Projects   with  James Ji and Nidhiya Menon (R&R)

This study investigates the impact of climate change on intimate partner violence in Bangladesh and shows that policy can mitigate much if not all of the harmful consequences of climate shocks on women. Utilizing a novel dataset linking geo-referenced meteorological remote-sensed data with information on women’s agency from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys, we find that dry shocks increase tolerance for intimate partner violence among women in poor and agriculture-dependent communities, amplifying existing social and environmental vulnerabilities. Climate resilience projects funded by the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT), a domestic climate fund, mitigate the negative impacts of dry shocks, highlighting the important role of such initiatives in ameliorating the negative social impacts of changing climate. We show that impacts are mitigated as these projects enhance resilience in agriculture by reducing the effects of droughts on acreage and yield in rainfed areas. Our findings underline the role of targeted policy interventions in fostering climate adaptation and wellbeing.

Settling Prosperity: Historical Immigration and its Long-Term Institutional Legacies  (R&R)

This paper examines the institutional impact of state-sponsored immigrant settlements in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, during the Age of Mass Migration. Using a new dataset that combines historical and modern administrative records, I show that municipalities closer to these settlements today enjoy better public goods provision and more well-defined property rights, as reflected in structured contractual arrangements, fewer land invasions, and increased investments in high-stakes agricultural practices. Intermediate data show that settlement municipalities recorded higher notarial activity, more frequent legal transactions, and greater land tax revenues in the years following settlement. These changes supported improvements in local governance, legal certainty, and public investment. Overall, the findings highlight how state-led settlement shaped regional economic and institutional development, showing that the implementation of immigration policy had lasting effects on local growth trajectories.

Pensions and Depression: Gender-Disaggregated Evidence from the Elderly Poor in India with Nidhiya Menon (submitted)

We leverage the expansion of the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP) in India in 2006 to estimate the impact of access to public pensions on measures of depression for the elderly in below poverty line households, using a regression discontinuity design based on age-eligibility cutoffs. We focus on India given that it is the largest lower-middle-income country in terms of population, has limited welfare safety nets, and relatively large proportions of disadvantaged people with mental health vulnerabilities. Evaluating the CESD-10 measure which is a validated depression scale, we find that pension eligibility lowers the likelihood of experiencing depression, with measurable gender differences. We uncover suggestive, gender-specific shifts in labor supply, healthcare utilization, social engagement, and broader indicators of well-being, which we speculate are explanations for why pension eligibility improves mental health. Our results offer insights for shaping effective social assistance policies aimed at raising the welfare of the most at-risk populations in resource-constrained contexts.

Nature Heals: Mangroves, Mental Health, and Cognitive Functions with James Ji, Nidhiya Menon, and Firman Witoelar

Mangroves provide vital services including fisheries support, carbon sequestration, and natural protection against coastal erosion and flooding, but their health consequences are less well-understood. We study their impacts on mental health and cognitive functioning in Indonesia, which has the most extensive and biodiverse mangroves in the world. Decades of deforestation, fueled by climate pressures, oil palm expansion and aquaculture, have led to widespread mangrove loss in the country, disproportionately affecting vulnerable coastal communities. By merging high-resolution satellite data on coastal land use change with individual-level panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in local mangrove cover reduces the likelihood of clinical depression by 4.7 percentage points, and buffers against declines in episodic memory for older adults. These effects operate through channels of enhanced economic security and reduced flood exposure. We find that cash transfers and social capital are less influential in the mangroves-mental-health relationship with ecological restoration potential mattering more. Our results establish an important link between ecosystem degradation and human capital decline, making a compelling case for integrating mangrove conservation and restoration in development strategies.