Hello, I am Manali!

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Economics and Public Policy at Tufts University, specializing in labor economics with a focus on gender. My research focuses on women’s labor market experiences with a policy-oriented approach. 

My job market paper examines how access to the Delhi Metro Subway influences women’s college enrollment and completion rates, finding significant increases in both. I transformed a cross-sectional dataset with displaced location coordinates into a grid-level pseudo-panel, addressing both the lack of panel data and the issue of displaced coordinates. With the staggered metro openings, I employed a Stacked Difference-in-Differences approach to assess causal effects. 

In another project, I analyze how women in Sub-Saharan Africa respond to extreme heat shocks. Alongside my co-authors, I compiled and processed 31 million temperature observations to construct heat shock measures. Using a fixed-effects methodology, we examine gender-disaggregated time-use patterns using the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) dataset. 

With a background in engineering, I have expertise in employing advanced econometric techniques such as RCTs, Difference-in-Differences, Instrumental Variables, Regression Discontinuity, Fixed Effects, and Synthetic Controls. I am proficient in Stata, R, and ArcGIS, with working knowledge of Python and SQL. I am seeking a position where I can contribute meaningfully, advance my research goals, and continue developing my skills.