Publications:
Alcohol Prohibition, Social Environment and Learning: Evidence from India (with Ather Hassan Dar, Deeksha and Sarani Saha) [accepted, Review of Economics of the Household. [ABDC journal ranking A]]
We study the effects of alcohol prohibition on children’s learning outcomes. We exploit a plausibly exogenous change in the availability of alcohol in the Indian state of Bihar, which implemented a state-wide ban on the manufacturing, sale, transport and consumption of alcohol. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that the ban reduced alcohol consumption and improved learning outcomes of school-going children in Bihar. The results are plausibly driven by improvements in the child’s social environment—-lower neighborhood crime and lower domestic violence — induced by the alcohol ban.
The Working Paper Version was circulated as "Alcohol Prohibition, Home Environment and Learning: Evidence from India"
Link to Published Version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-026-09858-w
Link to Working Paper Version: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4958902
Fertility Outcomes and Parental Well-being in Later Life: Evidence from India (with Bilal Ahmad Bhat and Esha Chatterjee) [Journal of Development Economics, Volume 177 October 2025, 103535 [ABDC journal ranking A*]]
We study the effect of fertility outcomes on parental well-being in post-reproductive ages. The context is India, where the gender of the firstborn is plausibly random, and parents with firstborn daughters end up having more daughters. For both women and men, we find that having a firstborn daughter leads to lower subjective life satisfaction and an increase in labor supply in their post-reproductive years. We present suggestive evidence that these results are plausibly driven by greater financial stress associated with marrying off daughters, and, for women, by the long-term effects of abortion and lower autonomy in households with firstborn daughters.
Link to journal article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103535
The Intergenerational Effects of Marital Transfers: Evidence from India (with Bilal Ahmad Bhat) [Journal of Human Resources, [ABDC journal ranking A*]]
We study the intergenerational effects of marital transfers in India. We use exogenous variation in dowry amounts induced by stronger anti-dowry laws introduced in 1985. The new legal regime reduced dowries substantially and increased domestic violence against women. We find that children born to mothers exposed to the reform have a 0.24 standard deviation lower height-for-age z-score and about 0.41 fewer years of completed schooling. These results are plausibly driven by increased domestic violence against mothers and lower household wealth on account of reduced dowries.
Link to SSRN Working Paper [Old Version]: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4217995
Link to journal article: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1022-12589R1
Intergenerational effects of affirmative action in higher education: Evidence from India (with Pragati) [Economics Letters, Volume 244, Article 112010, November 2024 [ABDC journal ranking A]]
We study the intergenerational effects of affirmative action in higher education on children’s nutritional outcomes. Our context is India, where we exploit a policy-induced introduction of reservation of seats in higher education for the socially disadvantaged Other Backward Classes. We find that children of exposed mothers are less likely to be stunted. The effect is more pronounced for daughters. Higher levels of education and greater autonomy amongst treated mothers plausibly drive these results.
Link to journal pre-print: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4944180
Link to published version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112010
The Great Indian Demonetization and Gender Gap in Health Outcomes: Evidence from Two Indian States (with Md. Nazmul Ahsan) [Economics and Human Biology, Vol. 53, Article 101369, April 2024 [ABDC journal ranking A]]
We utilize the timing of India’s 2016 demonetization policy to examine whether a negative macroeconomic shock disproportionately affects women’s health outcomes relative to men’s. Our empirical framework considers women as the treated group and men as the comparison group. Using data from the National Family Health Survey-4 and a household fixed effects model, we find that the induced income shock leads to a 4% decline in hemoglobin for women as compared to the pre-demonetization level. This corresponds to a 21% increase in the gender gap in hemoglobin. The result is further validated with an event study and a variety of robustness checks. An examination of food consumption suggests that this pattern is possibly driven by a widening male-female gap in the consumption of iron-rich foods.
Link to published version: doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101369
Mother's Widowhood and Children's Education: Evidence from India (with Pragati) [Economics Letters, Vol. 232, Article 111316, November 2023 [ABDC journal ranking A]]
We study the impact of mother’s widowhood on children's education in India. Using nationally representative panel data, we find that children of mothers who transition into widowhood complete 0.40 additional standardized years of education as compared to their same-age peers. This effect is higher for daughters than sons. Greater maternal autonomy and a higher willingness to co-reside with daughters in old age amongst widowed women may plausibly explain these results.
Link to published version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111316
Working Papers:
Dowries, Debts and Children’s Learning Outcomes: Evidence from India (with Bilal Ahmad Bhat, Sarani Saha Gargi Sarkar) [R&R, Journal of Development Studies, [ABDC Journal ranking A]]
Large sums of dowry (marital transfers from the bride to the groom) customarily paid in Indian weddings make daughters' marriages very expensive. We show that households that have more daughters are more likely to have incurred a debt, reflecting financial strain plausibly induced by the obligation to bear high marriage expenses. This financial strain is mirrored in worse learning outcomes amongst children in households that have a large number of daughters and report being in debt. The results appear to be driven by lower consumption expenditure and greater maternal labor supply in households that incur debts and have firstborn daughters. Consistent with strong son-preference in India, we present suggestive evidence that girls' learning outcomes are more adversely affected than that of boys.
Link to Working Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6085606
Land, Law and Leaving: How Inheritance Reforms Shape Male Migration Patterns (with Aqueel Ahmad and Mahamitra Das)
Structural transformation typically features rural-urban migration; therefore, barriers to migration impede structural transformation. We study the effect of a gender-progressive amendment to Indian property inheritance laws on migration and occupational choice. Husbands of treated women are more likely to migrate and work in services rather than agriculture. Treated women are not more likely to inherit ancestral land, but may receive higher education and dowries. Higher dowries may ease liquidity constraints, enabling husbands to migrate. Our findings indicate that gender-progressive amendments may have beneficial macroeconomic consequences, far beyond the original intent of the legislators.
Link to Working Paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7423118
Crimes against Women and Migration: Evidence from India (with Bilal Ahmad Bhat)
Barriers to migration lead to intersectoral misallocation of labor in developing countries. We present novel evidence that parental concerns about daughters being potential victims of sexual crimes act as a barrier to migration for adult males. Families with firstborn daughters end up having more daughters, and are 20% less likely to have an out-migrant. We present evidence that this is driven by the imperative to have male members around to protect daughters. Further, a policing reform focused on reducing sexual harassment increases male out-migration, indicating that greater security for women may improve efficiency of intersectoral allocation, and increase GDP.
Soil Endowment, Intimate Partner Violence, and Child Health Outcomes (with Rupsa Majumdar and Sarani Saha)
We study the impact of soil endowments on children's health outcomes in India. Using nationally representative cross section data, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the loamy soil content reduces the probability of stunting, wasting and underweight of children under 5 years by 0.23, 0.36 and 0.47 percentage points respectively. As anticipated, we find this differential impact to be higher for children residing in the rural regions. Reduced female labor force participation mitigates backlash effect from the household, leading to lower intimate partner violence, therein acting as a plausible channel to explain our findings.
Technological Changes, Social Norms and Fertility Choices (with Helu Jiang and Nikita Sangwan)
We study how technological change interacts with social institutions to shape fertility and the sex composition of children. India's Green Revolution raised agricultural productivity without directly changing gender-specific comparative advantage, but it operated in a patrilocal setting in which sons support parents in old age and daughters marry out. Using mother-level birth histories matched to district-year adoption of high-yielding varieties, we find that greater exposure is associated with lower completed fertility, a higher share of boys, and more stopping after a son. We interpret these patterns through a dynamic model of sequential fertility choice with patrilocality and dowry. Calibrated to the pre-Green Revolution economy, the model accounts for 72.9% of the fertility decline, 54.3% of the increase in the untargeted stopping-after-a-boy moment, and 21.8% of the decline in the female-to-male ratio. Counterfactuals show that old-age support and dowry operate through different margins. Daughter-targeted transfers can improve gender composition, although their effectiveness depends on the timing and eligibility rule of the policy, and they may also increase fertility.
[Draft coming soon]