Research

Abstract: Social connections matter for educational, non-cognitive and long run labour market outcomes. Using a sample of 12,842 students from India, I first show that relatively isolated students face a host of socio-emotional and academic disadvantages. I then implement a two-tier randomized deskmate matching intervention, aimed at improving the outcomes of these isolated students. The results reveal a notable trade-off. Within the classroom, matching isolated students with each other improves their social connections with peers, interactions with teachers and social / non-cognitive skills. However, across classrooms, creating more isolated-popular deskmate pairs improves social integration for isolated students with no change in social and non-cognitive skills. These findings suggest that optimal matching plans need to account for both direct and group-level effects, which may operate in opposing directions, leading to equity-efficiency trade-offs.

Project Website

Corresponding visualization using the data: Notable people map by Topi Tjukanov.
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Abstract: A new strand of literature aims at building the most comprehensive and accurate database of notable individuals. We collect a massive amount of data from various editions of Wikipedia and Wikidata. Using deduplication techniques over these partially overlapping sources, we cross-verify each retrieved information. Our strategy results in a cross-verified database of 2.29 million individuals (an elite of 1/43,000 of human beings having ever lived), including a third who are not present in the English edition of Wikipedia. Building on seminal works based on Freebase and Wikipedia by Schich et. al 2014 and Yu et. al 2016, we use six additional language editions of Wikipedia as well as Wikidata as complementary sources of information about notable individuals to reduce the Anglo-Saxon bias present in current works. We obtain information about their demographic characteristics, place and death of birth / death, citizenship, and occupation. This is an attempt to create the most comprehensive database employable for understanding the role of culture, gender and creative classes in fields of economic growth, urban economics, cultural development and network analysis.

Abstract: Paying for college is often a family affair, with both parents and students contributing. The rising cost of college has led families to increasingly rely on debt to finance education. We study the effects of college on family finances using administrative data on all FAFSA applicants in California linked to credit records. We perform two complementary analyses. First, we use an event-study framework to describe how students and parents’ use of debt changes in response to a child’s college attendance. We show that parents increase the use of educational loans when their child attends college. Parents also shift borrowing from credit cards and auto loans. Further, we find that parents are less likely to declare bankruptcy. These patterns suggest that educational loans provide a useful mechanism for financing household spending. Second, we use discontinuities in eligibility for generous financial aid to test how an exogenous change in the price of college affects parents and students. We find that parents finance increases in the price of college through educational loans as well as home equity loans. We find that financial aid for children decreases parental delinquency on debt. These findings document a new and important channel in which the college and its rising cost may spill over into the broader financial health of families and economy.

Abstract: How does the climatic experience of previous generations affect today’s attention to environmental questions? Using self-reported beliefs and environmental themes in folklore, we show empirically that the realized intensity of deviations from typical climate conditions in ancestral generations influences how much descendants care about the environment. The effect exhibits a U-shape where more stable and more unstable ancestral climates lead to higher attention today, with a dip for intermediate realizations. We propose a theoretical framework where the value of costly attention to environmental conditions depends on the perceived stability of the environment, prior beliefs about which are shaped through cultural transmission by the experience of ethnic ancestors. The U-shape is rationalized by a double purpose of learning about the environment: optimal utilization of typical conditions and protection against extreme events.

Abstract: Social networks are a key factor of success in life, but they are also strongly segmented on gender, ethnicity, and other demographic characteristics (Jackson 2010). We present novel evidence on an understudied source of homophily: behavioral traits. Based on unique data collected using incentivized experiments with more than 2,500 French high-school students, we find high levels of homophily across all behavioral traits that we study. Notably, the extent of homophily depends on similarities in demographics, particularly gender. Using network econometrics, we show that the observed homophily is not only an outcome of endogenous network formation, but is also a result of friends influencing each others' behavioral traits. Importantly, the transmission of traits is larger when students share demographic characteristics such as gender.

Abstract: Majority of students in rural India still lack foundational literacy and numeracy skills. Large class sizes, overworked teachers and a heavy reliance on traditional instruction starves students of individual attention necessary for academic growth. In a resource constrained environment, can high ability students improve the outcomes of their peers? We evaluate the effect of a peer tutoring intervention in rural Bihar on students’ academic outcomes and non-cognitive skills. We work with a sample of 25,000 students from grade 3 to 5 across 350 schools in the district of Bhagalpur. High academic ability individuals in treated schools are assigned leadership roles where they spearhead everyday remedial classes for mathematics in small groups with a fixed set of learners. The study evaluates how personal attention (for learners) and positions of responsibility (for leaders) affect students’ proficiency and interest in math, develop relevant social and non-cognitive skills and reduces math anxiety rampant under traditional instruction. It also evaluates whether peer tutoring programs alter classroom social networks and make the classroom environment more conducive. By analyzing impacts on both academic and social growth, the study presents scalable and cost-effective solutions for generating improvement in academic outcomes that persist over time.

Abstract: Famous individuals contribute to the visibility of cities, and vice-versa. The production of historical data on notable individuals has expanded in recent years but information on their association to locations remains scarce. We extend our older work from the Brief History of Human Time project and improve information on geographical locations beyond birth and death place of 2.29 million notable individuals spread over 3500 years of human history. We compile a consolidated database of places visited by these individuals in their lifetime. Using information from the text in Wikipedia in a structured way, we assign a reasonable range of years for each location associated with an individual to identify their locations of residence and work over their lifetime. We cross verify this information against information contained in Wikidata. We use multiple Wikipedia editions simultaneously to further assign a confidence and intensity measure of association for each location to an individual. We create metrics useful for measuring the impact of the presence of notable individuals on city growth from a historical perspective (with various focuses such as the development of global cities – e.g. 20th century in Americas, 21st century in the Global South, or the Middle-Age and Industrial Revolution in Europe). 

Abstract: Social Connectedness is and has always been a key determinant in individual success and personal growth. But, does it scale up and affect nations and institutions too? Mokyr (2016), “A Culture of Growth” highlights the key role that cross occupational connectedness played in the development of economies in Medieval Europe. For ideas to be generated and then put into practice, academics needed (i) safeguards from the political elite and (ii) connections with like-minded entrepreneurs to transform ideas into reality. This project takes a big data approach to test the impact of cross-occupational connections on economic growth of historical empires. Building on our older work from the Brief History of Human Time project, I generate personal and professional social networks of notable individuals by structurally parsing information from text in different editions of Wikipedia. I use the occurrence of cross links on individual biographies and incidence of sharing similar workplaces / institutions during one’s lifetime to construct historical social networks. I further cross verify this information against specific property indicators present on WikiData. Attributes of the constructed social networks are then benchmarked against historical growth estimates and key events to analyze the role of inter-occupational and inter-generational ties in development of medieval European economies.

Abstract: How would a warming planet affect household finances and inequality through the increased incidence of wildfires around the globe? Current estimates in the literature paint an incomplete picture since they do not account for spillovers emanating from families supporting each other during financial shocks. To understand the mediating effect of risk sharing within families on financial impacts of natural disasters, this project uses the universe of California residents with credit records over the last 20 years. Using ID homogenization and tracking methods, we first construct family units in credit data and then explore how individuals in wildfire affected areas transfer the financial incidence to family members in unaffected areas. Further, we analyze how rich vs poor families share risk between parents and children. Since credit constraints can force poor parents to transfer risk to their children and the lack of credit constraints allow rich parents to create buffers for their children, we explore potential long run inequality impacts of wildfires through divergent wealth and debt levels between households of different attributes.

Abstract: How do teachers respond to information about social networks within their classrooms? We build on our previous work on the role of deskmate plans in resolving social isolation. In this project, we run two different types of treatment. In the first treated group, similar to Alan et al. [2024], teachers are provided key pieces of information such as relative popularity levels of their students. In the second treatment, teachers are additionally provided information about potential deskmate plans they can implement. All participating teachers including the ones in control get information on benefits of resolving social isolation. The project aims to estimate the role of multi-dimensional teacher effort in resolving issues of social isolation. We evaluate whether providing information on social isolation makes teachers engage in more global practices such as increasing cohesion for all through collaborative activities in their pedagogy or makes them take more local approaches such as directed effort towards some students. Further, we test if teachers can implement programs that are better suited than scientifically generated seating plans. We survey both teachers and students to document changes in seating plans, attention from teachers, level of collaborative activities etc as a result of our information treatments. We further estimate the impact of this information on downstream student outcomes such as social, cognitive and non-cognitive skills.

Abstract: Are digital and non-cognitive skills gross complements? We test this theory through a social skills focused digital skills curriculum implemented across middle and high schools in Nairobi, Kenya. In conjunction with the Kenyan ministry of education and our implementation partner, Digifunzi, we design a digital literacy course focusing on coding, AI and robotics with homework assignments and icebreakers geared towards reduction of gender biases, social causes and increased pro-sociality. Through a multi-treatment RCT where we dole out a standard digital literacy program vs the social skills focused digital literacy program, we aim to test for the complementarities in pedagogical practices which make technology more socially oriented. We evaluate the impact of the program on an individual’s growth in socio-emotional outcomes, preferences for future occupations and retention in math and digital skills.

Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of the fear of losing social status (la peur du déclassement) on the levels of democratisation and economic growth. In a formal model where education makes an individual’s vote count and generates positive externalities for all agents in the economy, I examine the incentives for the elites to initiate a democratic transition by educating the masses when they care about both their status (relative position in the income distribution) and their absolute incomes. In the context of imperfect capital markets, the paper analyses the equilibrium patterns of political outcomes, income distribution, and growth as a function of initial income, inequality, distortions from tax structures and externalities from education. The model illustrates that a higher weight on status preference leads to a lower level of democratisation and economic growth.