Research 

Gender Norms and Motherhood Penalty: Experimental Evidence from India,  with Arjun Bedi and Matthias Rieger

Revision Requested 

Gender norms and community origins shape the motherhood penalty in India, with mothers from matrilineal and Northeast communities facing less discrimination in the labor market. 

A previous version was circulated as IZA Discussion Paper No. 11360  

Does Market Power Breed Inefficiency? Evidence from Firm-Level Inventory Dynamics,  with Anisha Shukla.

When competition vanishes, managers relax: Market power breeds operational slack, causing firms with high markups to exhibit slower inventory turnover, with this inefficiency being amplified by weak corporate governance structures and poor CEO incentives. 

When the Bullet Hits the Chain: The Ripple Effects of Sentimental Shocks on Supply Chains, with Adityava Mazumder 

Emotionally charged local events, sentimental shocks, disrupt supply chain relationships by triggering asymmetric responses from upstream and downstream firms, revealing a novel behavioral channel in network governance. It extends transaction cost economics by introducing sentimental shocks as a dynamic, non-fundamental source of governance costs that reshape firm boundaries and network structure.

Relational Resilience: Does Employee Gender Composition Buffer Deposit Demand Irregularities?, with Abhiman Das. 

Female employee composition in bank branches helps stabilize deposits during localized economic shocks, offering a novel frontline employee channel to relational resilience. 

Government as Marketer: Policy-Driven Product Promotion and Labor Market Congestion, with Neeraj Katewa and Sangeeta Misra.

Revision Requested 

A government-led product promotion policy in Uttar Pradesh, India triggers short-term wage declines due to migration-driven labor bottlenecks, revealing how demand-side policies can strain operational capacity, but yields long-term gains as markets adjust.  

Import Competition, Myopic Management, and Long-Term Implications: Evidence from Discretionary Marketing Investments.

Rising import competition pressures US manufacturing firms to prioritize short-term gains through myopic marketing and R&D, boosting short-term performance but risking long-term market power and competitiveness. 

Who Benefits from Private Schools? The Demand for Private Schools in Rural India.

Private schooling in rural India acts as an equalizer, offering significant academic gains for girls and disadvantaged children compared to boys and their advantaged peers, but access is hindered by liquidity constraints. 

Digital Divide or Digital Equalizer? Digital Technology and Educational Achievements in Rural India,  with Anisha Shukla.

Digital accessibility affects educational outcomes in rural India, finding that while it improves test scores of all children, disadvantaged groups benefit the most, though they have less access, potentially widening educational inequality. 

Household Resource Allocation Under Constraints: Evidence from India's Shadow Education Market.

Revision Requested 

This paper uncovers how Indian households under financial constraints exhibit a child quantity–quality tradeoff, investing more in private tutoring per child when they have fewer children, mirroring capacity allocation tradeoffs central to operations systems.  

Shadow Education, Intra-Household Financial Resource Allocation, and Educational Achievements, 2025, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 233, 106993.

Replication Files 

Girls and later-born children in India are disadvantaged in shadow education expenditures due to parental elder son preference, leading to notable gaps in cognitive test scores.   

Does Signaling Childcare Support on Job Applications Reduce the Motherhood Penalty?, with Arjun Bedi and Matthias Rieger, 2022, Review of Economics of the Household, 20(2), 373-387. Replication Files

Signaling access to childcare support on CVs reduces the motherhood penalty in India's labor market, highlighting the potential for support policies to mitigate gender-based employment discrimination. 

Gray University Degrees: Experimental Evidence from India,  with Matthias Rieger, 2020, Education Finance and Policy, 15(2), 292-309.               

EFP Takeaways    Replication Files

Gray degrees in India increase job interview callbacks but are still viewed less favorably than authentic degrees, highlighting the complex dynamics of degree legitimacy in the hiring process.