In labor markets with potentially unsafe working conditions and information frictions, job exploration is risky for women. I study spousal co-working, a work arrangement that can mitigate exploration risks, using surveys and three field experiments with workers and employers in India's garment sector. Survey data on more than 4,000 workers show that 46% of married women in the sector work in the same factory as their husbands, typically following them there. An incentivized job choice experiment reveals that women value the option to switch to a new workplace with their spouse as much as a 36% wage increase. Although spousal control plays a role, risk mitigation emerges as the primary driver. Application rates are equal when employed couples randomly receive offers to switch employers together or for the husband to switch alone, and fall by 50% when only wives receive offers. Men working with their wives in factories with worse conditions are less willing to switch alone, contributing to job lock. Recognizing that co-working couples have lower job mobility, employers are 54–152% more interested in hiring them than other job seekers in an incentivized hiring experiment,  and take advantage by offering co-working women slightly lower wages. 

We study the effects of an Indian law that increased paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks on the labor market outcomes of women and men: wages, employment, and career trajectories. Leveraging pre-reform variation in leave duration across employers, social security records covering all formal workers, and the universe of LinkedIn profiles, we implement a differences-in-differences event study and document four key results. First, the policy reduced female employment by 6% within six months and by 10% within four years. Effects were concentrated among young women aged 18-35, indicating that the average firm shrank in response to higher costs. Second, employers did not pass costs onto wages: women’s wages remained unchanged while men’s wages rose slightly, consistent with firms reallocating towards experienced male employees. Third, men were promoted over women: incumbent male workers are more likely to move into roles requiring high firm-specific human capital, while young women were placed in manual or routine positions. Fourth, to rationalize the magnitude of the employment decline, employers must be greatly overestimating the rate at which women take maternity leave, pointing to employer misperceptions. We develop a framework to identify when maternity leave policies may generate unintended consequences and discuss potential policy remedies. 

Many theories of outsourcing presume private firms are more efficient producers of goods and services, but firms do not internalize the government's objective function due to contracting frictions. Perhaps, for some tasks, the government can actually be more productively efficient? We study this question through an experiment in Chennai, India, where the government randomly selected wards of the city to have property tax assessments determined by private firms contracted by the government, rather than government tax inspectors. We show that inspections by government-employed tax inspectors yielded almost double the increase in tax revenue as those done by private firms. They were also more accurate, as judged by comparing new assessments to independent assessments done by third-party surveyors we hired. Government inspectors had higher skills and put in more effort. While  difficulties contracting with the government discouraged many competent firms from bidding, we also show that government inspectors had more local knowledge, and more authority to enter properties, both of which may be hard to transfer even to higher quality firms. The results suggest that the limits to government outsourcing may go beyond multitasking issues.

Millions of Americans live in federally designated areas with an undersupply of primary care physicians. Using quasi-experimental variation in physician placements through the National Health Service Corps program and Medicare claims data, we measure the causal effect of additional physician arrivals to these areas on net physician supply, healthcare utilizations, and health outcomes of local residents. We find that physician arrivals increase overall primary care supply without displacing existing physicians. Half of the healthcare provided by new entrants would have been satisfied by other doctors, while the other half constitutes an increase in overall utilization. The additional utilization is concentrated in preventive care services and elective inpatient procedures and leads to significant reductions in emergency hospitalizations and mortality, with a cost per life saved of $17,526. Health improvements are particularly pronounced for beneficiaries with cardiovascular conditions and persist five years post-arrival, suggesting that temporary physician incentives may generate lasting health improvements for underserved populations. 

There are vast disparities in access to healthcare across the United States, contributing to poor health outcomes. Up to eighty million individuals live in federally designated health professional shortage areas. Visa waiver programs were introduced to address physician shortages by granting work authorization to international medical graduates in exchange for a three-year commitment to practice in shortage areas. We are the first to study the effects of these programs on local physician supply and health outcomes. Focusing on Appalachia, we use proprietary data on all primary care physicians (PCPs) awarded visa waivers between 1999 and 2022, combined with Medicare claims data, to show that the arrival of a foreign PCP increases net physician supply. While initial gains are driven by visa waiver recipients, many of whom leave after three years, replacement by other PCPs keeps supply stable. We also find persistent increases in healthcare utilization, especially evaluation and management visits, preventive testing, as well as cardiovascular and minor procedures. Higher utilization increases diabetes and hypertension diagnoses among the previously undiagnosed, mirroring predicted rates of undetected cases among older adults. Foreign physicians thus play a critical role in providing care in medical deserts. 

This paper examines whether some firms are systematically better at advancing women's careers, focusing on India's corporate sector. Using an identification strategy based on firms' first recruitment events at universities, we compare women who join top-ranked female-friendly firms to peers from prior cohorts. Using LinkedIn data on career histories, we find that women who start at these firms are significantly more likely to remain at their initial employer, advance to management positions, and take on roles requiring abstract tasks. These effects persist eight years after graduation, suggesting that early placement at supportive firms can have lasting impacts on women's career trajectories.