Institutional Births and Child Mortality: Evidence from the Janani Suraksha Yojana in India (with Syeda Tasnime Kabir) [Under review] [Conference Presentation: NEUDC 2024, SEA 2024, APPAM 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.
Entitled to Property: How Breaking the Gender Barrier Improves Child Health in India (with Plamen Nikolov) [Conference Presentation: Economic Demography Workshop (EDW) 2024, SEA 2022, PacDev 2022, ADE 2022]
Non-unitary household models suggest that enhancing women’s bargaining power can influence child health, a crucial determinant of human capital and economic standing throughout adulthood. We examine the effects of a policy shift, the Hindu Succession Act Amendment (HSAA), which granted inheritance rights to unmarried women in India, on child health. Our findings indicate that the HSAA improved children’s height and weight. Furthermore, we uncover evidence supporting a mechanism whereby the policy bolstered women’s intra-household bargaining power, resulting in downstream benefits through enhanced parental care for children and improved child health. These results emphasize
that children fare better when mothers control a larger share of family resources. Policies empowering women can yield additional positive externalities for children’s human capital.
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) [Under Review] [Conference Presentation: ASHEcon 2022, NEUDC 2022, 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]
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.
Remittances and Household Dependence: Evidence from Bangladesh (with Adesola Sunmoni and Estiaque Bari) [Under Review] [Conference Presentation: APPAM 2024, 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.
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.