Job Market Paper
The effectiveness of prenatal care in protecting maternal health outcomes. Link to Draft
This paper evaluates the effectiveness of prenatal care in improving maternal health by exploiting the 1996 welfare reform (PRWORA) as an exogenous source of variation. PRWORA imposed a five-year waiting period on federal Medicaid for recent immigrants. States had the option to fund the federally ineligible using state funds, generating heterogeneous state responses. I use the cross-state variation and apply a generalized difference-in-difference-in-differences framework to individual birth records from the restricted Vital Statistics Natality files linked to the 1990 Decennial Census. My results indicate that greater exposure to PRWORA was associated with fewer prenatal care visits, later initiation, and greater prenatal care inadequacy. On the maternal complications side, the same increase in exposure corresponds to a slight rise in hemorrhage and birth injury, with no apparent effects on uterine rupture or primary cesarean deliveries. Taken together, the evidence suggests that PRWORA’s eligibility restrictions reduced access to prenatal care. However, the impact on maternal health outcomes is mixed, with increases in risks for certain complications but limited effects for others.
Working Paper
Navigating Inequities: Racial Disparities in Prenatal Care Access and Obstetric Injuries. Link to Draft
This paper examines the role of prenatal care in shaping racial disparities in obstetric injuries, with a focus on complications such as ICU admissions, blood transfusions, uterine rupture, hysterectomy, and perineal lacerations. Using nationally representative U.S. natality data, I document substantial differences between non-Hispanic Black and White mothers in both prenatal care utilization and maternal outcomes. A Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition reveals considerable heterogeneity across outcomes in the extent to which observable characteristics account for these disparities. Differences in prenatal care utilization and maternal risk explain a large share of the gap in outcomes such as maternal transfusion, but account for a much smaller portion of disparities in ICU admissions and other severe complications. For rarer outcomes, observable characteristics do not explain the disparities and, in some cases, operate in the opposite direction, indicating an important role for unobserved factors and differences in how care translates into outcomes. Importantly, the results suggest that prenatal care is differentially associated with outcomes across groups, with additional prenatal visits linked to larger improvements among Black mothers. This implies that disparities in utilization may be particularly consequential for higher-risk populations. Overall, the findings highlight that while differences in prenatal care contribute meaningfully to racial disparities in maternal health, a substantial portion of these gaps reflects broader structural and institutional factors in the healthcare system.
Works in Progress
Atmospheric Pressure and Birth Outcomes (With Dr. Seth Neller) Link to Draft
Atmospheric pressure is a relatively understudied environmental exposure, particularly within the field of economics. This paper examines whether short-run fluctuations in atmospheric pressure affect birth timing and maternal outcomes in the United States. We merge restricted-use Vital Statistics Natality records from 1989-2019 with daily weather data from the National Centers for Environmental Information and estimate a distributed lag models that exploit within-county variation in atmospheric pressure over time. Our results suggest that increases in atmospheric pressure reduce contemporaneous birth volume, with little evidence of effects in surrounding lead or lag periods. A 1-standard deviation increase in atmospheric pressure reduces births on the delivery date by approximately 0.236 percent. The effects are concentrated among pregnancies at 37-38 weeks of gestation, suggesting that atmospheric pressure primarily affects births already close to, but not completely, full term. In contrast, we find little evidence that atmospheric pressure affects obstetric interventions or maternal outcomes.
Impact of Access to Prenatal Care on Maternal Health, Infant Health, Female Labor Force Participation
Publications and Reports
Dasgupta, D., Das, S. Sustainability performance of the Indian cement industry. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 23,1375–1383 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01998-6.
Dasgupta, D. Just Transition: Towards Greener Future. Just Transition Newsletter. The Energy and Resources Institute 01, 4-5 (2022).
Dasgupta, D. Environmental Policy Instruments for Controlling Pollution in the Developing Countries. EconoPress Newsletter.Kalindi College, University of Delhi, 60-64 (2022).
Academic Presentations
Southern Economic Association, Houston, November 2026 (Upcoming)
American Society of Health Economists, Minneapolis, June 2026
14th Annual Houston Global Health Collaborative, March 2026
CSWEP Health Mentoring Workshop, September 29, 2023 (Online)
CSWEP Health Mentoring Workshop, Follow-up Meeting, December 12, 2023 (Online)
Brownbag, The University of Tennessee (Fall 2024-Present)
Applied Micro Group, The University of Tennessee (Spring 2023-Spring 2026)