About
I am a 6th year PhD Economics Candidate at Columbia University, New York.
I hold a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and an undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. I previously worked as a Research Associate at Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi and as a high school teacher at Isha Home School, Tamil Nadu.
Primary fields : Development Economics, Health Economics, Public Economics
Secondary fields : Environmental Economics, Industrial Organization
I am on the 2023/24 Job Market.
Curriculum Vitae (Updated November 2023)
References: Eric Verhoogen, Gautam Gowrisankaran, Jack Willis
Email: uk2154@columbia.edu
Phone: +1-347-753-4464
Address:
420 W 118th Street
Department of Economics
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
U.S.A.
Job Market Paper
(with Parijat Lal)
Abstract (click to expand): We study the equilibrium effects of subsidizing public services in the presence of vertically differentiated public and private suppliers. We evaluate one of India's largest welfare schemes, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which subsidized childbirth at public health institutions. JSY did not improve health outcomes despite a substantial increase in take-up of institutional care. We document three equilibrium responses that explain this policy failure. First, JSY led to a mismatch in patient risk across health facilities. High-risk mothers sorted out of the highest-quality care at private facilities and into lower-quality public facilities. Second, in response to congestion and deterioration of care at public hospitals, only mothers with high socio-economic status sorted out of congested public facilities into more expensive private facilities. Third, private hospitals increased prices without improvements in healthcare quality in a specific subset of states, further crowding out high-risk and poor mothers. These findings point to the need for complementary public policies in addition to JSY, in particular, capacity improvements at public facilities and targeted vouchers for poor mothers to access healthcare at private facilities.
Working Papers
(with E. Somanathan, Marc Jeuland, Eshita Gupta, T.V. Ninan, Rachit Kamdar, Vidisha Chowdhury, Suvir Chandna, Michael Bergin, Karoline Barkjohn, Christina Norris, T. Robert Fetter and Subhrendu Pattanayak)
Submitted
Abstract (click to expand): We collected minute-by-minute data on electricity availability, electric induction stove use, and kitchen and outdoor particulate pollution in a sample of rural Indian households for one year. Using within household-month variation generated by unpredictable outages, we estimate the effects of electricity availability and electric induction stove use on kitchen PM2.5 concentration at each hour of the day. Electricity availability reduces kitchen PM2.5 by up to 50 μg/m3, which is between 10 and 20 percent of peak concentrations during cooking hours. Induction stove use instrumented by electricity availability reduces PM2.5 in kitchens by 200-450 μg/m3 during cooking hours.
(with David Amaglobeli and Mariano Mozsoro)
IMF Working Paper 2023
Abstract (click to expand): We identify key drivers of digital adoption, estimate fiscal costs to provide internet subsidies to households, and calculate social dividends from digital adoption. Using cross-country panel regressions and machine learning we find that digital infrastructure coverage, internet price, and usability are the most statistically robust predictors of internet use in the short-run. Based on estimates from a model of demand for internet we find that demand is most price responsive in low-income developing countries and almost inresponsive in advanced economies. We estimate that moving low-income and emerging market economies to the level of digital adoption in emerging and advanced economies, respectively, will require annual targeted subsidies of 1.8 and 0.05 percent of GDP, respectively. To aid with subsidy targeting, we use micro-data from over 150 countries and document a digital divide on gender, socio-economic status, and demographics. Finally, we estimate the monetized benefits of internet use on education quality as well as time spent doing unpaid work and labor force participation by gender. Our calculations suggest substantial aggregate and distributional gains from digital adoption. Moving low-income and emerging market economies to the level of digital adoption in emerging and advanced economies, respectively, improves education quality substantially and increases labor-force participation equivalent to 1.8 percent of GDP, largely driven by women.
Vickrey Award for Best 3rd Year Paper, Runners up, Columbia University 2021
Abstract (click to expand): Combining novel data on millions of trips across the Indian railway network with satellite-based environmental data, I establish a causal link between the practice of crop-residue burning in India on disruptions in transport infrastructure using three independent causal inference techniques. I show that crop-residue burning gives rise to high volumes of particulate pollution, which combined with India’s humid climate creates dense layers of smog. This smog causes significant unpredictable delays across India’s entire transport infrastructure due to reduced visibility. Given increased policy attention towards crop-residue burning in India, this finding shows that the adverse effects of severe air pollution extend beyond the Northern Indian states. Furthermore, I find suggestive evidence that rural workers’ monthly savings decline as they switch to private modes of transport and buy more fuel.
Can large scale conditional cash transfers resolve the fertility-sex ratio tradeoff?
Preliminary draft available upon request
Abstract (click to expand): Currently, there are at least 15 conditional cash transfer schemes in India that aim to correct persisting gender inequalities arising out of a preference for sons in Indian families. Despite huge financial resources being pumped into these schemes, there is a lack of field-level monitoring and useful redressal mechanisms which make their impact un-clear. I evaluate a conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme called Ladli Laxmi Yojana in Madhya Pradesh, India. I find financial incentives aimed at the girl child increased average fertility by about 0.157 children per couple and improved sex-ratio by about 0.034. These findings point towards the well known fertility-sex ratio trade-off. These effects are quite different from a similar CCT scheme in Haryana (Anukriti 2018), suggesting context dependence of such policies.
Work in Progress
Politics and public sector productivity
(with Shreya Chandra)
Abstract (click to expand): There has been a long-standing debate on the role of public sector firms in economic development. We conduct an empirical investigation of the classical theoretical claim that public sector firms are often captured by political interests (Shleifer and Vishny 1994). We study the case of Indian railways - one of the world's largest public sector firms. Our empirical strategy combines rich election data with a novel output-based measure of productivity - namely train delays. We have webscraped travel times for millions of trips across the Indian railway network. Using closely contested elections as a source of plausibly random changes in political leaders across Indian constituencies, we plan to test whether (and how) politicians affect the operations of Indian railways.
Household sorting and willingness to pay for spatially concentrated environmental disamenities: A case of Delhi's trash mountains
(with Shreya Chandra)
UC Berkeley Economists for Equity Fellowship (2021, 2022)
Abstract (click to expand): Absent adequate urban planning, accelerated urbanization in developing countries can have severe consequences. Lack of waste management in India has resulted in huge trash mountains in major urban areas including Delhi. These overflowing landfill sites disproportionately affect the urban poor. Recent policy debates in Delhi have highlighted the lack of public investment in cleaning up trash mountains. But how much should the government invest in clearing up trash mountains? This project aims to build a city-level willingness-to-pay measure using an urban spatial equilibrium model. Using granular data from the Indian census, we aim to calibrate an urban model for Delhi and evaluate welfare improvements from counterfactual removal of three major trash mountains. Monetized value of overall welfare gains will provide a measure of city-level willingness-to-pay to remove Delhi's trash mountains.
Optimal spatial distribution of economic activity in a changing climate
Teaching
Department of Economics, Columbia University, New York
Teaching Fellow, (Undergraduate) Principles of Economics [Fall 2023]
Head Teaching Fellow, (Undergraduate) Principles of Economics [Fall 2021]
Teaching Fellow, (Undergraduate) Principles of Economics [Fall 2020]
Instructor, (Undergraduate) Industrial Organization [Summer 2021]
Instructor, (Undergraduate) Industrial Organization [Summer 2020]
Teaching Fellow, (Masters) Introduction to Econometrics [Spring 2021]
Teaching Fellow, (Masters) Introduction to Econometrics [Spring 2020]
Isha Home School, Coimbatore, India
High School Economics Teacher, Grade 12 (2016-2017)
Professional Experience
Fund Internship Program, International Monetary Fund 2022
Research fellow for Gautam Gowrisankaran, Columbia University [Spring 2022]
Research fellow for W. Bentley MacLeod, Columbia University [Fall 2019]
Research fellow for Eswaran Somanathan, Indian Statistical Institute [2017-2018]
Personal
Non-academic interests: I am a professionally trained Squash player, an avid violinist and a certified mountaineer (from JIM&WS, Kashmir, India). I also coached the UC Berkeley Mens’ Squash team in 2022-2023.
Website: I borrowed this website design from Gautam Rao’s GitHub repository. This link has useful information on how to launch a page using hugo.
