Research
Publications
De Jure versus De Facto Transparency: Corruption in Local Public Office in India (with Dahyeon Jeong and Laura Zimmermann)
Accepted, Journal of Public Economics
Version: 13 January 2023
[show abstract]
Governments and NGOs have invested heavily in fighting corruption by designing
anti-poverty programs that maximize transparency and accountability. We analyze
whether corruption is still widespread in the context of one such program, a
massive make-work scheme in India where every job spell is posted publicly
online. Linking millions of administrative job records to local election outcomes,
we measure how many jobs winning candidates self-deal. In the year after the election, winners
of close elections receive 3 times as many workdays as losers and typical villagers,
a sum equal to two-thirds their official stipend. We find that corruption persists
because of a gap between de jure and actual transparency. Only when citizens
have tools to access information in a timely manner does corruption eventually vanish.
The Political Consequences of Resource Scarcity: Targeted Spending in a Water-Stressed Democracy (with Meera Mahadevan)
Forthcoming, Journal of Public Economics
Version: 8 February 2023
[show abstract]
We study whether resource scarcity enhances the scope for clientelism in India.
Farmers without access to groundwater during dry seasons cope using a large
public-aid program controlled by local politicians. We leverage a multidimensional
regression discontinuity for exogenous variation in whether local politicians are
aligned with the state's ruling party. We find that the state government channels
disproportionate funds to politically-aligned jurisdictions in water-stressed areas
and consequently gains votes in subsequent elections. However, we find no partisan
differences in aid allocation for non-water-stressed areas, suggesting a selective
targeting of public funds to garner votes in the highest-return regions.
The Targeting and Impact of Partisan Gerrymandering: Evidence from a Legislative Discontinuity (with Dahyeon Jeong)
Forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics
Version: 31 January 2022
[show abstract]
A party's influence over redistricting increases discontinuously when its seat share in the state legislature
exceeds 50 percent. We apply bunching tests to show that, in the election before redistricting, parties
systematically win narrow majorities in legislatures of states where they have lost recent U.S. House races.
This trend of losses is reversed after redistricting despite no change in overall House vote shares in states
near the cutoff. The pre-to-post-redistricting change in regression discontinuity estimates implies that the
party that controls redistricting engineers an 11 percentage point increase in its probability of winning a
House race.
Estimating the Production Function Under Input Market Frictions
Review of Economics and Statistics
(Code)
September 2021, 104(4): 666-679
Old title: "Estimating the Production Function When Firms Are Constrained"
[show abstract]
Behind many production function estimators lies a crucial assumption that the firm's choice of intermediate inputs depends only on
observed choices of other inputs and on unobserved productivity. This assumption fails when market frictions distort the firm's
input choices. I derive a test for the assumption, which is rejected in several industries. I show, using weak identification asymptotics,
that when the assumption fails a simplified dynamic panel estimator can be used instead of choice-based methods because it requires
choices to be distorted. I propose criteria for choosing between estimators, which in simulations yields lower error than either estimator alone.
(JEL Codes: C52, D24)
Does Insecure Land Tenure Deter Investment? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial (with Heather Huntington)
Journal of Development Economics
May 2021, 150: 102632
[show abstract]
There is broad agreement among the most prominent observational studies that tenure insecurity deters investment.
We present new experimental evidence testing this proposition: a land certification program randomized across villages
in Zambia. Our results contradict the consensus. Though the intervention improved perceptions of tenure security, it
had no impact on investment in the following season. The impact is still zero even after a cross-randomized
agroforestry extension relaxes financial and technical constraints to agroforestry investment. Though relaxing these
constraints has a direct effect, it is not enhanced by granting land tenure, implying tenure insecurity had not been
a barrier to investment.
(JEL Codes: P48, O13)
God is in the Rain: The Impact of Rainfall-Induced Early Social Distancing on COVID-19 Outbreaks (with Rolly Kapoor, Haedong Rho, Kinpritma Sangha, Bhavyaa Sharma, and Guanghong Xu)
Journal of Health Economics
January 2022, 81: 102575
This article has open access thanks to generous support from the UC Library
[show abstract]
We measure the benefit to society created by preventing COVID-19 deaths through a marginal
increase in early social distancing. We exploit county-level rainfall on the last weekend before
statewide lockdown in the early phase of the pandemic. After controlling for historical rainfall,
temperature, and state fixed-effects, current rainfall is a plausibly exogenous instrument
for social distancing. A one percent decrease in the population leaving home on the weekend
before lockdown creates an average of 132 dollars of benefit per county resident within 2 weeks.
The impacts of earlier distancing compound over time and mainly arise from lowering the risk of a
major outbreak, yielding large but unevenly distributed social benefit.
The Ecological Impact of Place-Based Policies (with Teevrat Garg)
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
August 2021, 103(4):1239-1250
[show abstract]
Does economic development have an unavoidable ecological cost? We examine the
impacts on forest cover of one of India's signature place-based economic policies
involving massive tax benefits for new industrial and infrastructure development
following the creation of the new state of Uttarakhand. Using a spatial
difference-in-discontinuities design, we show that the policy, which explicitly
excluded environmentally damaging industries, resulted in no meaningful change in
local forest cover. Our results suggest that even in settings with low levels of enforcement,
place-based economic policies that deliver transformative economic expansion can be
implemented with minimal ecological costs.
Can the Party in Power Systematically Win a Majority in Close Legislative Elections? Evidence from U.S. State Assemblies
(with Dahyeon Jeong)
Journal of Politics
April 2022, 84(2): 1149-1164
[show abstract]
We study whether ruling parties can systematically win a slender majority of seats in close legislative elections, a phenomenon called
"precise control." We test for discontinuities in two outcomes that, in the absence of precise control, should be smooth at the 50% cutoff:
the probability density of the share of seats won, and the identity of the party that previously held a majority. We find robust evidence of
precise control, but only in high-stakes state elections that determine which party controls Congressional redistricting. Its absence in other
elections suggests precise control is a strategic option used at the ruling party's discretion. It shifts its strategy in high-stakes elections
from seat maximization to majority-seeking, winning fewer seats but reducing the chance it loses its majority. These tactics are disproportionately
effective for the party defending a majority. It is 4 times more likely to win than to lose a close election.
Risky Income or Lumpy Investments? Evidence on Two Theories of Under-Specialization
Economic Development and Cultural Change
July 2018, 66 (4): 629-671
[show abstract]
Why do the poor have so many economic activities? According to one theory the poor do not specialize because relying
on one income source is risky. I test the theory by measuring the response of Thai rice farmers to conditional volatility
in the international rice price. Households expecting a harvest take on 1 extra activity when the volatility rises by 21 percent.
I confirm the decrease in specialization costs households foregone revenue. I find no evidence to back a second theory in which
households under-specialize because they cannot afford lumpy business investments. (JEL Codes: D13, O12, D81)
Regional Development through Place-Based Policies: Evidence from a Spatial Discontinuity
Journal of Development Economics
January 2018, 130: 173-189
[show abstract]
In 2002 the Indian government targeted the new state of Uttarakhand with massive improvements in infrastructure, a generous investment subsidy, and a
complete exemption from corporate and excise taxes. I estimate the causal effect of this policy on economic development by exploiting the spatial
discontinuity created by the new state border. Nighttime light emissions rise sharply in the targeted state, implying a 28 percent increase in output.
Village public goods, farm employment, and proxies for household welfare rise in tandem. I rule out that the effect is driven by decentralization of policy,
improvements in business regulations, or differential trends at the border.
Market Failures and Misallocation
Journal of Development Economics
September 2017, 128: 65-80
[show abstract]
I develop a method to measure and separate the production misallocation caused by failures in factor markets versus financial markets.
When I apply the method to rice farming villages in Thailand I find surprisingly little misallocation. Optimal reallocation would
increase output by less than 19 percent. By 2007 most misallocation comes from factor market failures. I derive a decomposition of
aggregate growth that accounts for misallocation. Declining misallocation contributes little to growth compared to factor accumulation
and rising farm productivity. I use a government credit intervention to test my measures. I confirm that credit causes a statistically
significant decrease in financial market misallocation, but has no effect on factor market misallocation. (JEL O47, O16, E13)
Poverty Traps, Convergence, and the Dynamics of Household Income (with Raj Arunachalam)
Journal of Development Economics
May 2017, 126: 215-230
[show abstract]
We design a new method to detect household poverty traps. We apply the method to a unique panel that follows rural Indian households over
thirty years. We find no evidence of poverty traps. Most households had annual income growth of over 2 percent, and income mobility is high.
We then design and apply a method to detect conditional convergence. We find that upper castes are converging to a level of wealth 3 times as
high as disadvantaged castes.
Working Papers
Political Organizations and Political Scope (with Laura Zimmermann)
Version: 2 August 2023
Formerly circulated as: The Workforce of Clientelism: The Case of Local Officials in the Party Machine
[show abstract]
We study how party organizations circumvent fiscal checks and balances by coordinating politicians across multiple levels of government.
We combine thousands of election outcomes from the Indian state of West Bengal with 300 million payments from a welfare scheme jointly
controlled by state and local governments. We show that the state government gives disproportionate funding to co-partisan local councils,
which target payments to raise votes for national candidates. Welfare payments are diverted to reward local councilors who successfully
deliver votes, and to recruit opposition councilors. The ruling party recruits candidates only where it lacks a majority, systematically
expanding its control.
Work in Progress
Measuring and Transferring Retail Productivity (with Heather Huntington and Brenda Samaniego de la Parra)
Raising Retail Productivity through Data Pooling (with Jie Bai and David Sungho Park)
A Model of Imperfectly Managed Production
Estimating Non-Neutral Productivity Under Input Market Frictions
Political Misallocation of Electricity in India (with Meera Mahadevan and Bhavyaa Sharma)
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