Publication
Publication
Embedded Files
(with Kalyani Raghunathan, Neha Kumar, Shivani Gupta, Ashi Kohli Kathuria and Purnima Menon). World
Development, August 2023, 168: 106267.
Working Papers
Working Papers
Women’s Agency and Intra-Household Efficiency with Carolina Castilla and David Murphy
Abstract: We present results from an experiment with married couples in Western Kenya, who play five rounds of a voluntary contributions game. Spouses allocate an endowment between a private account and a household account earning 50 percent interest. We add a randomized first stage where women either allocate the endowment or choose whether to defer the decision to their husbands. Thirty-five percent defer in at least one round. These women receive smaller endowments and contribute less to the household account. Efficiency is higher when women exert agency. Deference is also associated with higher exposure to intimate partner violence.
Link to paper.
Accounting for Empowerment? Examining Women's Financial Inclusion in India
Abstract: Bank accounts are an essential first step towards accessing formal financial services, yet their impact on women’s control over resources remains underexplored. Using the sharp timing of the 2014 policy in India that provided free bank accounts and a high-frequency household panel data, I find that women’s account ownership increased household's likelihood to save in formal instruments and switch to formal sources of borrowing but did not affect women's private consumption. Exploiting regional variation in pre-policy bank infrastructure, I further analyze the effects on women’s self-reported decision-making. Districts with faster expansion of accounts did not show improvement in women’s participation in household purchase decisions or their spending autonomy. However, there are heterogeneous effects by women's mobility and household's trust in banking institutions. This paper provides empirical evidence that while broad based account expansion policies benefit households, their impact on women's financial autonomy is limited.
Link to latest draft.
Invited Talks:
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 2025
Kania School of Management, University of Scranton, 2024
Economics Department Research Seminar, Lafayette College, 2023
Colgate Hamilton Economics Seminar, Colgate University, 2023
Conferences:
19th Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development, Indian Statistical Institute, Dec 19-21 2024.
North East Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) 2024 Conference, Nov 2-3 2024.
Eastern Economic Association (Organizer and presenter, CSWEP sponsored session on Financial Inclusion of Socially Vulnerable Groups in India), February 29-March 3 2024.
European Winter Meeting of the Econometric Society (EWMES2023), University of Manchester, December 17-19 2023.
Researcher Gathering, Innovations for Poverty Action and the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University, October 12-14 2023.
Extreme temperature and intimate partner violence (IPV): Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract: This paper tests the effect of extreme high and low temperatures on women’s experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) through temperature-induced aggression in Sub-Saharan Africa. Related papers find that drought is likely to increase the incidence of IPV. I find a higher prevalence of physical forms of IPV for women who experienced higher maximum temperatures than the historical average. The prevalence of emotional and sexual violence is lower in this context. A test for the correspondence between the days of temperature-and-humidity-based discomfort and severity of violence reveals the same pattern for the three categories of violence. A woman experiencing extreme heat and cold is more likely to report physical, sexual and emotional violence if her partner drinks and if she is employed. These results highlight the distributional effects of climate change and the need for public policy measures, training of law enforcement agents and amendment of laws to reflect them.
Conference
Third Biennial Conference on Development, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Dec 16-19 2024
Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., July 23-25 2023.
Do political motivations affect recovery from natural hazards? Analysis of floods in India
Abstract: The state plays a central role in managing risk and responding to natural hazards and climate change, as well as enabling private sector involvement in these areas. However, political processes can potentially undermine recovery if they influence the state's relief efforts. This paper examines whether the following political incentives influence governments’ resource allocation in the aftermath of floods in India: targeting loyal supporters, voters at the margin, or staunch opposition. The paper uses fixed effects linear regression models to analyze differences in the recovery of economic activity of constituencies exposed to a flood shock by election outcomes between 2008 and 2013. It uses a regression discontinuity on the vote share of the ruling party candidate to test the causal effect of a flooded constituency's affiliation with the state ruling party on post-flood economic activity. Economic activity is defined as monthly aggregates of the nighttime luminosity of a constituency. The ruling parties in the sample were more likely to prioritize their staunch opposition in post-flood relief and restoration than their loyal supporters. Increasing vote margin of loss for the ruling party candidate corresponded with faster recovery in the first two months after a flood. A consecutive second term of state governments and the proximity of a flood to an upcoming election were associated with faster recovery. With rising temperatures and climate change, the global incidence of floods is expected to intensify. The results of this paper help understand the political factors that may affect a local community’s recovery and inform the mitigation efforts of state and non-state institutions.
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Conferences:
100 Years of Economic Development, Cornell University, September 15-17 2022.
Jobs, innovation and rural value chains in the context of climate transition: Bridging the gap between research and policy, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), June 21-24 2022.
Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) Conference on Economic Development in Africa, 14-18 March 2022.
Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) 2022, University of San Francisco, March 5 2022.
European Economic Association (EEA)-ESEM Virtual, August 23-27 2021.
AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, August 1-3 2021.
International Conference in Development Economics, DIAL, GREThA and LAREFI, June 30- July 2 2021.
Works in progress
Works in progress
Digital Finance and Women’s Intrahousehold Bargaining Power with Berber Kramer, Patrick Ward, Subhransu Patnaik and Yingchen Xu
Worker sorting and retention in Indian manufacturing with Natasha Jha
Fieldwork
Fieldwork
Manesar, Haryana (India), 2025
Thimmapuram and Uppada, Andhra Pradesh (India), 2024
Tirupathur, Tamil Nadu (India), 2021
Saharsa, Bihar (India), 2016-18
Photo credit: Siva, Location: Andhra Pradesh, India
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