Working Papers

The Fiscal Effects of Housing Prices: Evidence from School Districts (Job Market Paper).

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the housing market in the United States led by residents moving away from city centers to suburbs, that has potential fiscal implications for the local governments. Considering unit of data at the school district level from 2006-22, I employ difference-in-differences methods to measure the impact of changes in housing market due to COVID, on local government’s revenues and expenditures in the New York State (NYS). Results indicate the evidence of increase in revenues, generated from the collection of property taxes. The effect is mainly driven by districts at the intermediate distance from the city, relatively less denser areas. The overall expenditures did not increase significantly, but I find a slight growth in spending towards debt services, employee benefits and general government needs.

Effect of Macroprudential policy on Exchange Market Pressure, with Ulrich Hounyo and Neree Nouman (link)

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of macroprudential policy on measures of Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) in emerging market economies and OECD countries. Using the quarterly panel data over the period of 2000-2019, we analyzed the adoption of policy using the difference-in-difference (DD) approach. We find a significant impact on one of the three measures of EMP, while the other two EMPs shows no effect. We also attempt to document the potential problems related to sample bias and in estimation associated with variation in treatment timing, small sample and conventional DD standard errors. Using Wild bootstrap methods, we find that the policy effect does not significantly impact EMP.

Grant Received: Benevolent Association Research Grant, Spring 2022 (link). 

Sources of Financing Out of Pocket Expenditure – A State Level Analysis in India (link).

Working in Progress

Fiscal Stress Monitoring Program and its implications on government finances and housing prices, with Ulrich Hounyo and Chun-Yu Ho.

Abstract: This paper examines the fiscal stress monitoring program, which labels governments that are in financial trouble and implement the financial recovery plans. I employ difference in difference and regression discontinuity design to analyze the effect of fiscal stress and environmental stress on government finance behavior, housing prices and education. I find that governments with fiscal stress labels reduce total expenditures per capita. The environmental stress is found to significantly decline housing values and school enrollment in the districts.