Job market paper
The Cost of Policy Failure: Evidence from India’s Right to Education Act
Abstract
This paper studies the effect of the non-implementation of education reforms on enrollment levels at the elementary school level in India. The paper exploits a unique natural experiment in which the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act of 2009 was implemented in India, except for the state (now Union Territory(UT)) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Using a synthetic control approach, I estimate the causal impact of the non-implementation of the RTE act on enrollment levels in elementary schools in J&K. Using household surveys and administrative data from the Ministry of Education, I find that, on average, nearly \(300,000\) (\(16.8\%\) more than pre-RTE enrollments) additional elementary-aged children could have enrolled annually if the act had been rolled out in J&K. I find that the effects are more pronounced in the upper primary level compared to the primary level. I establish the economic significance first through Mincer wage equations, showing that children in J&K who complete elementary education earn \(45.6\%\) more than children without any schooling. Second, the forgone lifetime earnings were approximately INR \(66,739\) crore (roughly USD \(7\) billion in 2026) across all cohorts that were affected by the non-implementation.
Working Papers
Private credit and Property prices: New insights into this nexus
with Cesar Rodriguez
Abstract
The relationship between the dynamics of property prices and private credit has long been a focal point for economists and policymakers, particularly given its role in financial stability. Understanding this relationship is especially crucial for developing economies, where financial markets are often less mature and more vulnerable to external shocks. This paper examines this relationship using quarterly data from 27 countries spanning 1982 to 2021. Through an instrumental variables approach that addresses endogeneity concerns, we identify three key findings. First, property price growth consistently drives private credit growth across both developed and developing economies, with a one percentage point increase in property prices associated with a 0.35 percentage point rise in private credit growth. Second, conventional macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, inflation, and GDP growth affect credit dynamics differently across development levels. Third, external factors, particularly trade openness and commodity price fluctuations, play an especially significant role in shaping credit dynamics in developing countries. Additionally, our analysis suggests that the property price-credit nexus has evolved, with notable shifts occurring around major economic events. Our results are robust to various sensitivity checks and alternative specifications and methodologies. These findings have important implications for the design of macroprudential policies, especially in developing economies where institutional capacities may differ from more developed markets.
Status: R&R at Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics
Do compulsory schooling laws matter? Evidence from Peru
Abstract
This paper estimates the effects of Peru’s 1993 compulsory schooling reform, which extended mandatory education from 6 to 11 years, on educational attainment, labor market outcomes, and welfare. Using eighteen rounds of Peru’s national household survey (ENAHO, 2001–2018) and a cohort-comparison design, I find that the reform increased years of schooling by 0.30–0.32 years and monthly earnings by 16.2–17.4% for individuals aged 25–35. Because the reform operated through multiple channels beyond years of schooling, including the formalization of employment, exit from agriculture, rural-to-urban migration, and increased tertiary attainment, I argue that reduced-form estimation is more appropriate than standard instrumental variables approaches. The reform’s effects were largest among individuals from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds, conflict-affected regions, and areas with below-median baseline education. The reform reduced poverty by 9.1 percentage points and extreme poverty by 3.7 percentage points. These findings suggest that compulsory schooling reforms generate the largest returns when complemented by broader institutional transformations such as economic liberalization, post-conflict reconstruction, and higher education expansion that create demand for the skills such reforms supply.
Status: Draft coming April 2026
Does School Quality Reduce Child Labor? Evidence from Brazil’s Rural Electrification Program
Abstract
This paper investigates the causal impact of an increase in school quality on the prevalence of child labor in affected communities in Brazil. Using school electrification as a proxy for school quality, the variation in the timing of electrification is used as an instrument that is plausibly exogenous to the unexplained child labor choice. An increase in school quality in the form of electrification is found to have a depressing effect of between 6.5 and 9 percentage points on child labor prevalence within the same community over a ten year period. These results suggest that improvements in the quality of schools might be an effective tool to reduce child labor overall.
Status: Draft coming April 2026
Work-in-progress
Learning or Earning: How Compulsory Schooling Shaped Child LaborAbstract
… Coming soon
Status: Data analysis
Education in the shadow of civil conflict: Evidence from India
with Ratul Das Chaudhury
Abstract
… Coming soon
Status: Data analysis
Improving school management in a low-income country: Experimental evidence from India
with Todd Pugatch , Ketki Sheth, Emmanuel Rukundo
Project Summary
This project examines a critical yet understudied mechanism of the educational production function - how investments in school management capacity translate into student learning outcomes and holistic skill development. The study is still in progress but nearing its completion,with the endline data collection currently underway.
Status: Data Analysis
Navigating Margins: Gender, Identity, and Developmental Discourse among Ethnic Minorities
with Malvya Chintakindi
Abstract
… Coming soon
Status: Data analysis
Threads of Survival: Kinship, Gender, and Intersectional Dynamics in Urban Slums
with Malvya Chintakindi
Abstract
… Coming soon
Status: Data analysis
The Great (research) Divide: The long term dynamics of Coauthorship Networks in International Development
Abstract
… Coming soon
Status: Gathering data
Dormant Papers
The Use of Behavioural-science Informed Interventions to Promote Latrine Use in Rural India: A Synthesis of Findings
with Charlotte Lane and Bethany Caruso
Making data accessible: lessons learned from computational reproducibility of impact evaluations
with Neeta Goel and Marie Gaarder