[1] Institutional Births and Child Mortality: Evidence from the Janani Suraksha Yojana in India (with Ontiq Dey and Syeda Tasnime Kabir) [Conference Presentation: 8th SANEM Annual Economists' Conference (SAEC) 2025, NEUDC 2024, ASHEcon 2024]
The Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a conditional cash transfer program by the Government of India aimed at reducing maternal and child mortality by promoting facility-based deliveries. This study examines the impact of the JSY on facility birth and child mortality outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we compare outcomes between eligible and non-eligible women before and after the implementation of the JSY. Our findings indicate that the JSY significantly increased public facility deliveries and reduced infant and under-5 child mortality. Robustness checks confirm the validity of these results. We identify that the JSY improved child mortality outcomes through increased facility births and better access to antenatal and postnatal care. This study contributes to the debate on the efficacy of cash transfer programs by providing robust evidence that well-designed financial incentives can drive significant health improvements, especially in resource-constrained settings.
[2] Parental Involvement and Child Development: Evidence from Bangladesh (with Syeda Tasnime Kabir and Sourov Kumer Paul) [Conference Presentation: Texas Early-Career Health Economist Network (TEXHEN) Workshop 2024]
We estimate the causal effect of parent’s involvement on mental health of primary school-going children in Bangladesh. Using an instrumental variable based on parenting networks, we find that increased parental involvement significantly reduces cognitive and emotional difficulties. Notably, we find that the protective effect of parental involvement varies by socio-economic context, showing weaker effects for children of mothers who married at an older age and those whose fathers live outside the household, but stronger effects in joint families. Furthermore, we identify two key mechanisms underlying these effects: accommodating parenting style and improved household hygiene practices. These results are robust across multiple sensitivity tests addressing selection issues and potential violations of the exclusion restriction.
[3] The Lasting Effects of Early Childhood Interventions: The National Vaccination Commando Program in Burkina Faso (with Richard Daramola, Harounan Kazianga, and Abdoul Karim Nchare Fogam) [Conference Presentation: Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MWIEDC) 2025 (Forthcoming), ASSA Annual Meeting 2024, The South East Exchange of Development Studies (SEEDS) 4th Annual Conference, Fifth SANEM-World Bank North America Discussion Forum 2024, Stanford Rosenkranz Symposium 2024, NEUDC 2022, ASHEcon 2022]
This study evaluates the long-term impacts of the National Vaccination Commando Program, an early childhood health intervention in Burkina Faso, during the 1980s. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find significant reductions in child mortality and improvements in educational attainment, including increased primary school completion rates. We also find significant positive effects on adult employment and agricultural productivity, yielding a substantial rate of return on the initial health intervention. These findings underscore the lasting benefits of early childhood health interventions in low-income countries.
[4] Remittances and Household Dependence: Evidence from Bangladesh (with Adesola Sunmoni and Estiaque Bari) [Under Review] [Conference Presentation: SEA 2024, ASSA Annual Meeting 2024, Seventh SANEM Annual Economists' Conference 2024]
Remittances, as private transfers to households, can generate two opposing effects: the income effect and the liquidity effect. The income effect may lead to remittance dependence by reducing the recipient households’ non-remittance income. Conversely, the liquidity effect may enhance income-generating activities through capital accumulation and improved health productivity. It is theoretically ambiguous to determine which of these effects is relatively stronger. Consequently, this study empirically investigates whether remittances lead to dependence in Bangladesh. To address endogeneity concerns, we employ instrumental variable and imperfect instrumental variable approaches. Our results show that remittances do not lead to dependence at either the extensive or intensive margins. These findings are robust across different model specifications and relaxation of the instrumental variable exogeneity assumption. Exploring the potential channels of the effect, we find that remittances significantly enhance household living standards and facilitate capital accumulation, thereby promoting higher productivity and engagement in income-generating activities.
[5] Why Do Workers from Low-Income Backgrounds Earn Less as Adults? (with Eric Nielsen and David Slichter) [Conference Presentation: SOLE 2023]
What accounts for the intergenerational correlation of labor market income: worker’s productive skills or the ability to translate a given level of skill into earnings? Using a rich set of controls, we show that observable differences between workers from high- and low-earning backgrounds can account for the majority of the intergenerational earnings relationship. We then present multiple lines of evidence regarding the gap that we are unable to explain with controls. Overall, we estimate that roughly 70% of the earnings disadvantage of people raised in low-earning families is due to differences in workers’ skills, with the remaining 30% being due to differences in efficiency of translating skills into earnings. The contribution of inefficiency is greatest for younger workers. The most important differences in efficiency are related to wage bargaining and geography.
[1] Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS) Bangladesh With Guy Grossman (UPenn), Carlos Schmidt-Padilla (UC Berkeley), Harsha Thirumurthy (UPenn), Catalina Udani (UPenn), Nudrat Faria, and Alyssa Heinze (UC Berkeley). Co-Principal Investigator.
B-PEMS is a five-year (2022-2027), $7.9 million collaborative project between Winrock International and PDRI-DevLab. The project is funded by the US Department of State’s Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS). The project’s primary goal is to reduce the prevalence of Trafficking in Persons in Bangladeshi farming and fishing households vulnerable to climate change. Winrock International provides technical assistance to farmers, fishers, and fish farmers in climate-change affected regions to conduct climate-smart agriculture and aquaculture and to link them to skills training, job placement, and micro-enterprise development for alternative livelihoods. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) study design, we are evaluating the effect of Winrock’s community-level activities on the prevalence of climate change-induced human trafficking and associated risk factors.