Amrutha Manjunath
Welcome! I am a sixth-year PhD candidate at the Department of Economics at Pennsylvania State University. My research interests are in spatial economics, international trade, and development economics. I will be on the job market in the 2024-25 academic year.
I received my BA in Economics (major) and Mathematics (minor) from Ashoka University in 2019.
My CV is here.
Email: amrutha.manjunath@psu.edu
Research
Working Papers
Language Barriers, Internal Migration, and the Labor Market: a General Equilibrium Analysis (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: I use novel microdata on district-to-district migration in India and Consumer Pyramids Household Surveys to formalize three facts on language, location, and the labor market. I find that workers migrate less often to locations where they face language barriers, migrant workers that overcome high language barriers choose ``speaking"-intensive occupations less often, migrant workers that overcome high language barriers get a wage premium, and each of these is diminished for skilled relative to unskilled workers. Motivated by these facts, I write and estimate a quantitative spatial general equilibrium model where heterogeneous workers make their static migration decisions in the presence of language barriers and firms aggregate over inputs from occupations that may be ``speaking"-intensive or not. Through the lens of the model, I evaluate gains to migration, wages, and output from a language policy relative to infrastructure or education policies. I also quantify the extent to which language barriers impede gains to unskilled workers and those from linguistically distance origins by setting the spatial distribution of ``speaking" occupations to the levels that they were in 1987, prior to structural change and growth in services in India.
Presentations
2024: Urban Economics Association European Meeting (Copenhagen, Denmark), Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Brownbag*, Trade and Development Brownbag (PSU)
2023: Midwest Economics Association (Cleveland), Canadian Economics Association (Winnipeg, Canada), European Trade Study Group (Surrey, UK), Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia PFMAP Brownbag, Trade and Development Brownbag (PSU), Applied Microeconomics Brownbag (PSU)
(*scheduled)
Criminal Politicians, Political Parties, and Selection
Abstract: I use data from four recent parliamentary elections in India to understand how criminally accused candidates win three times more often than non-criminals upon nomination. I write a simple model of party nomination choice, which predicts that criminals are nominated only when they are needed to win and not otherwise. Using local linear regressions, I confirm this prediction in the data. In particular, I find that the predicted probability from the ex post decision to nominate a criminal has an inverse-U relationship with a party's ex ante margin of victory. This may explain why criminal candidates are more successful than non-criminal candidates upon nomination: they are selected by political parties to do so.
Presentations
2023: International Economic Association World Congress (Medellin, Colombia)
2022: Midwest Political Science Association (Chicago), Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development (ISI Delhi, India), Applied Microeconomics Brownbag (PSU)
Teaching
Instructor, Pennsylvania State University
Introductory Microeconomic Analysis and Policy (Summer 2022)
Teaching Assistant, Pennsylvania State University
Migration and Development (Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024)
Political Economy (Spring 2022)
Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis (Spring 2021, Fall 2021)
Introductory Microeconomic Analysis and Policy (Fall 2019, Fall 2020)
Statistical Foundations for Econometrics (Spring 2020)
Other
Non-Academic Writing
Splitting Hairs, The Booming Wig Trade between India and Africa, The Caravan Magazine, December 2017
Bone of Contention, An Andhra Pradesh Family's Generations-Old Method of Treating Fractures, The Caravan Magazine, August 2017