“The Social Tax: Redistributive Pressure and Labor Supply” (with Eliana Carranza, Aletheia Donald, and Florian Grosset), Conditionally accepted, Econometrica, 2025.
[Slides] [Coverage: World Bank policy brief]
“Cognitive Endurance as Human Capital” (with Christina Brown, Geeta Kingdon, and Heather Schofield), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2025.
“Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?” (with Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2025. 140(1): 635-689.
[Slides] [Online Appendix] [Coverage: VoxDev podcast, NPR Planet Money]
Abstract: This paper measures excess labor supply in equilibrium. We induce hiring shocks—which employ 24% of the labor force in external month-long jobs—in Indian local labor markets. In peak months, wages increase instantaneously and local aggregate employment declines. In lean months, consistent with severe labor rationing, wages and aggregate employment are unchanged, with positive employment spillovers on remaining workers—indicating that over a quarter of labor supply is rationed. At least 24% of lean self-employment among casual workers occurs because they cannot find jobs. Consequently, traditional survey approaches mismeasure labor market slack. Rationing has broad implications for labor market analysis.
Recipient of the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award in Behavioural Economics.
[Slides] [Online Appendix] [Coverage: Marginal Revolution]
Abstract: This paper develops a new approach to test for downward wage rigidity by examining transitory shocks to labor demand (i.e., rainfall) across 600 Indian districts. Nominal wages rise during positive shocks but do not fall during droughts. In addition, transitory positive shocks generate ratcheting: after they have dissipated, wages do not adjust back down. Ratcheting reduces employment by 9 percent, indicating that rigidities distort employment levels. Inflation, which is unaffected by local rainfall, enables downward real wage adjustments—offering causal evidence for its labor market effects. Surveys suggest that individuals believe nominal wage cuts are unfair and lead to effort reductions.
[Slides] [Replication Files] [Coverage: VoxDev video, Wall Street Journal]
Abstract: Relative pay concerns have potentially broad labor market implications. In a month-long experiment with Indian manufacturing workers, we randomize whether coworkers within production units receive the same flat daily wage or differential wages according to their (baseline) productivity ranks. When co-workers’ productivity is difficult to observe, pay inequality reduces output by 0.45 standard deviations and attendance by 18 percentage points. It also lowers co-workers’ ability to cooperate in their own selfinterest. However, when workers can clearly perceive that their higher paid peers are more productive than themselves, pay disparity has no discernible effect on output, attendance, or group cohesion.
[Online Appendix] [Coverage: New York Times]
Abstract: Workers with self-control problems do not work as hard as they would like. This changes the logic of agency theory by partly aligning the interests of the firm and worker: both now value contracts that elicit more effort in the future. Three findings from a year-long field experiment with data entry workers suggest the quantitative importance of self control at work. First, workers choose dominated contracts—which penalize low output but provide no greater reward for high output—36% of the time to motivate their future selves; use of these contracts increases output by the same amount as an 18% increase in the piece-rate. Second, effort increases as the (randomly assigned) payday gets closer: output rises 8% over the pay week; calibrations show that justifying this would require a 4% daily exponential discount rate. Third, for both findings there is significant and correlated heterogeneity: workers with larger payday effects are both more likely to choose dominated contracts and show greater output increases under them. This correlation grows with experience, consistent with the hypothesis that workers learn about their self-control problems over time. Self-control problems among workers could potentially lead firms to either adopt high-powered incentives or impose work rules to allow monitoring of worker effort.
“Self-Control and the Development of Work Arrangements” (with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan), American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 2010. 100(2): pp. 624-628.
“Labor Markets in Developing Countries” (with Emily Breza), prepared for The Annual Review of Economics, 2025.
“The Psychology of Poverty: Current and Future Directions” (with Ye Rang Park, Yuen Ho, Kristina Hallez, Mahesh Srinivasan, and Jiaying Zhao), Current Directions in Psychological Science, forthcoming.
Note: Current Directions in Psychological Science is a peer-reviewed psychology journal.
“Retrieval Failures and Consumption Smoothing: A Field Experiment on Seasonal Poverty” (with Ned Augenblick, Kelsey Jack, Felix Masiye, and Nicholas Swanson), Revise and resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics.
“Social Norms as a Determinant of Aggregate Labor Supply” (with Emily Breza and Nandita Krishnaswamy), Revise and resubmit, Journal of Political Economy.
“Savings Constraints in Poverty” (with Jeremey Magruder and Nick Shankar)
“Biased Beliefs and Substance Abuse” (with Aprajit Mahajan and Shreya Sarkar)
“Wealth Effects in Female Labor Force Participation” (with Emily Breza, Madeline Duhon, and Yogita Shamdasani)