I am an applied microeconomist interested in topics in labor and development economics that are particularly relevant for policy making in low- and middle- income countries and in contextually similar pockets within the developed world. A recurrent theme in my research has been the focus on social identities, be they gender, caste, or immigrant status, and how identities impact economic outcomes. Additionally, I am fascinated with causal inference in and of itself. Causal inference is the science, and art, of building ‘what if’ scenarios in the same vein as Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. While Frost anticipated that he would never know how life would have unfolded had he taken the other road, as an econometrician my job is precisely to build such a counterfactual picture given the limitations of data, the body of scientific knowledge, and imagination. I have used techniques such as Regressions, Difference-in-differences, Fixed Effects models, and Regression Discontinuity, to answer causal questions embedded in Labor, Education, and Transportation.

Here is my Goggle Scholar page.

Published articles in Peer Reviewed Journals

1. Did the Nationwide Implementation of electronic fund management in the Indian Employment Guarantee Scheme Result in Reduced Expenditures? A Re-Examination of the Evidence (with JV Meenakshi and Zaeen de Souza), Review of Development Economics (2024)  https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.13105 

In section IV of their paper, Banerjee et al. (2020, E-governance, Accountability, and Leakage in Public Programmes: Experimental Evidence from a Financial Management Reform in India. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20180302) use a Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) specification to examine the consequences of the nationwide implementation of an electronic funds management system in India's workfare programme, and report that it reduced expenditures by 19%. We extend their analysis by (a) exploiting the recent literature that disaggregates the TWFE coefficient in the presence of staggered treatment timing to pinpoint sources of identifying variation and (b) attempting to uncover heterogeneity in treatment effects. We find that certain problematic comparisons have a large weight in the TWFE estimate. Further, an event study analysis of the six constituent and valid comparisons shows that there is no support for parallel trends, so lag coefficients cannot be vested with causal interpretation. Our results imply that large-scale evaluations, because of the very diversity they encompass, need to explicitly account for the factors that are responsible for programme effectiveness.

2. Social Identity and Perceived Income Adequacy (with Ashwini Deshpande), Review of Development Economics (2020) 24(2): 339-361 (accepted December 2018)

An individual's caste is an important dimension of one's identity in the Indian context. We examine how (rupee) amounts considered as remunerative earnings from (self-owned) businesses were shaped by the respondent's caste. As expected, we find that lower-ranked caste groups perceived lower amounts as being remunerative. Additionally, MGNREGS, India's flagship workfare program, improved the perceptions of Other Backward Classes (in that they reported higher amounts as being remunerative) by directly influencing their 'notions' of remunerative earnings, rather than by  impacting their economic conditions per se. 

3. The Impact of MGNREGA on Agricultural Outcomes and the Rural Labour Market: A Matched DID Approach (with JV Meenakshi and Deepak Varshney), The Indian Journal of Labour Economics (2018)  61(4): 589–621 

We find that MGNREGA, India's flagship workfare program, lead to modest changes in cropping patterns that were state and period specific. Additionally, we find no systematic impact on wages, and therefore no evidence that public works employment in MGNREGA crowded out casual labour in agriculture. 

4. Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male-Female Wage Gaps among Salaried Workers in India (with Ashwini Deshpande and Shantanu Khanna), World Development (2018) 102: 331-344 (accepted July 2017). Blog: Ideas for India

We examine gender wage gaps among salaried workers and find a ‘sticky floor’, i.e., higher gender gaps among low-wage earners compared to high-wage earners. Moreover, a large part of the gender wage gap could not be explained by gender differences in human capital and were possibly due to gender discrimination in the labour market. 

5. Social Ties and the Job Search of Recent Immigrants (with Kevin Lang), ILR Review (2019) 72(2): 355-381 (accepted December 2016) 

For recent immigrants to Canada, we study a specific mechanism via which their social networks helped in job search. We find that having a close relative or friend in Canada increased the likelihood of receiving a job offer, but did not change the type of offer (high or low paying) received. 

6. Decomposition Analysis of Earnings Inequality in Rural India: 2004-2012 (with René Morissette and Shantanu Khanna), IZA Journal of Labor & Development (2016)  5:18. Blog: Ideas for India

We study (wage) earnings inequality in rural India and find that it declined between 2004/5 and 2011/12. The decline was mainly because workers at lower quantiles experienced greater improvements in how the labour market rewarded their characteristics. 

7. The Effect of Metro Expansions on Air Pollution in Delhi (with Sonam Gupta) The World Bank Economic Review (2017) 31 (1): 271-294 (accepted August 2015). Blog: Ideas for India

We analyze whether the Delhi Metro led to localized reduction in transportation source pollutants. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we find that one of the larger rail extensions led to a reduction in localized carbon monoxide at a major traffic intersection in the city. 

8. Perceptions of Immigrants in Australia after 9/11 (2010), Economic Record 86: 596–608 

I examine whether the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11) in the United States changed the perception of discrimination among Muslim immigrants in Australia. I find that consequent to 9/11, relative to other immigrants, Muslim men and those who 'looked like' Muslims reported an increase in religious and racial discrimination. 

Working Papers

1. Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi (with Bidisha Barooah), IZA Discussion Papers  (2018) DP No. 11670.

Other Publications

1. Improving Survey Quality using Para Data: Lessons from the India Working Survey (with Rosa Abraham and Rahul Lahoti), NCAER National Data Innovation Centre Institutional Research Grant Report Number 03, 2021.

2. Inequality: India, Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, 2nd Edition, Macmillan Reference USA, 2013.

3. Book Review of Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee (eds.), Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective, Indian Economic Review, 46(2): 359-362, 2011.

4. Why Randomized Experiments are worth the Cost, with Nachiket Mor, Alliance, 14(1): 48-49, 2009.