Ongoing Research

Search and matching frictions for casual day laborers with Christina Brown (The University of Chicago).

In South Asia, three-quarters of ultra-poor households report casual labour as the dominant form of income. In urban areas, short-term construction jobs are found through social connections or by going to a “labour stand”, essentially an intersection where low-skilled labourers wait each morning for employers looking to hire for a day or two. While spot markets like this are generally thought of to be the free-market ideal, these markets appear to be rife with failures including information asymmetries, wage rigidity, and large search costs for employees and employers. The presence of these frictions often increases dependence on social relationships. In this project, we seek to answer why exactly employers hire workers from their social network, what are the mechanisms at play, and, in response to variation in the hiring process, how do workers change their investment in social capital versus productivity? To test these questions we partner with a large construction firm and exogenously vary incentives for contractors and information contractors have about worker productivity. This research is funded by IGC and PEDL. More on this project here.

Education equity and quality in Afghanistan and Pakistan (EEQAP): From evidence to policy and practice with Jean-Francois Trani (University of Washington in St Louis), Peter Hovmand (University of Washington in St Louis), Parul Bakhshi (University of Washington in St Louis), Juanita Vasquez-Escallon (UNICEF), Sheretta Barnes (University of Washington in St Louis), Nidhi Singal (University of Cambridge), Amin Mayel (Swedish Committee for Afghanistan), Farah Said (University of Göttingen-Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) and Muhammad Tahir Waqar (NRSP).

Children face many barriers to enrolling in and completing primary education particularly in Low-Income Countries (LICs). When they do manage to enroll in schools, many vulnerable children do not learn at par with peers: across the central and southern Asia region, it is predicted that 81% of children and adolescents (241 million) will not reach minimum proficiency in reading. This research implements and evaluates a social accountability intervention to improve student learning. We test if parents, students, and community members can be engaged in improving the quality of education through innovative social accountability mechanisms, combined with inclusive education training in schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This study is funded by the ESRC. (Project Website)

Trade, product mix and quality of products: Evidence from the Pakistan-China Free Trade Agreement work with Azam Chaudhry (Lahore School of Economics)

We explore various channels through which trade liberalisation affects firms in the context of the 2006 Pakistan-China Free Trade Agreement. We explore the effect of increased export opportunities, increased import competition, and import competition in the input market on product quality, prices, product, and input choices.

Increasing Early Childhood Vaccination in Pakistan with Rachel Glennerster (The University of Chicago) and Christina Brown (The University of Chicago).