I am professor of economics and John A. DiBiaggio professor of citizenship and public service at Tufts University, Medford Massachusetts. Here is my cv
Current Research
Drilling in the Drought: The Industrial Organization of Groundwater (with E. Somanathan)
Develops a spatial model of groundwater markets on a Salop circle, showing that small-farm water markets can lead to over-capitalization in wells, and that aquifer depletion can trigger a perverse boom in well-drilling as prices rise toward the monopoly price.
Electricity and Population Relocation in the Philippines (with I. Eizmendi Larrinaga, K. Emerick, and M. Ravago)
Uses a regression discontinuity design around the rollout of the Philippines' first rural electric cooperatives to study how electrification affects local population growth and migration. (Draft available on request)
Career Concerns and Environmental Enforcement in China (with Fan Xun and Bing Zhang)
Studies how career incentives facing local bureaucrats shape environmental enforcement intensity, and how firms sort in response across jurisdictions with different enforcement regimes.
Targeted Subsidies for Water Conservation in Smallholder Agriculture (Humnath Bhandari, Ujjayant Chakravorty, Kyle Emerick, Muhammad Ashraful Habib)
RCT across 360 Bangladeshi villages found that subsidizing water-saving irrigation technology cut tubewell owners' electricity costs by 20-40%, but farmers saw no benefit in water prices or crop yields, and seller profits actually fell in year two. The decline traces to a shrinking "command area": efficient irrigation reduces water spillovers that previously let owners cheaply serve low-value farmers at the margins, so those farmers dropped out as demand for irrigated land rose. The results suggest that equilibrium effects on market structure can make water-saving technology far less attractive than a simple cost-savings analysis would imply.