- CV.
University of Michigan734.615.2327
R4344, 701 Tappan Street, 48109
PhD, economics, Yale University (2009)
BA, math and economics, University of Pennsylvania (2004)
Research interests: development economics, health economicsBE 300 (Applied Microeconomics; BBA)
BUSABRD 320 (Doing Business in India, BBA)
ECON 666 (Economic Development, PhD)
- TEACHING.
In 2019-2020, BUSABRD 320, I will be teaching a global immersion course titled "Doing Business in India"
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SYLLABI:
BUSABRD 320: Doing Business in India
2018-present | BBA | Syllabus
ECON 666: Economic Development
2018 | PhD | Syllabus
BE 300: Applied Economics
2015-present | BBA | Syllabus
BE 888: Enterprise and Health in Emerging Economies
2014, 2016 | PhD | Syllabus
HMP 663: The Economics of Health Management and Policy II
2014 | MPH/MHSA | Syllabus
HPM 591a: Global Health Economics (at Yale)
2010-2012 | MPH | Syllabus
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- RESEARCH.Publications | Working Papers | Work in ProgressEarly Life Circumstance and Adult Mental HealthThe Light and the Heat: Productivity Co-benefits of Energy-saving TechnologyLED lighting flattens the temperature-productivity gradient on hot days in Indian garment factories.pdf | Review of Economics and Statistics (forthcoming)
When It Rains It Pours: The Long-run Economic Impacts of Salt Iodization in the United States
Iodized salt increased women's income and labor force participation in the 20th century US.
pdf | Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020, 102(2)
Dust and Death: Evidence from the West African HarmattanDust from the annual harmattan winds increases infant and child mortality in West Africa, but human adaptation has tapered these impacts over a 20 year period.pdf | Economic Journal (forthcoming)Booms, Busts, and Household Enterprise: Evidence from Coffee Farmers in TanzaniaHealth, Enterprise, and Labor Complementarity in the Householdwith Anant NyshadhamEndowments at Birth and Parents' Investments in Childrenwith Anant NyshadhamReturns to Treatment in the Formal Health Care Sector: Evidence from Tanzaniawith Anant NyshadhamWhy is formal sector care better than self-treatment for sick children?pdf | American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2015, 7(3)
Firing Costs and Flexibility: Evidence from Firms' Labor Adjustments to Shocks in Indiawith Amalavoyal Chari and Siddharth SharmaSchooling, Child Labor and the Returns to Healthcare in Tanzaniawith Anant NyshadhamThe Long-Run Impacts of Adult Deaths on Older Household Members in Tanzaniawith Kathleen Beegle - RESEARCH.Management and Shocks to Worker Productivitywith Namrata Kala and Anant Nyshadham
When workers face productivity shocks, managers reallocate tasks within teams, shifting workers away from jobs in which their performance is most affected.
pdf | july 2019
Revise and resubmit, Journal of Political Economy
Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamicswith Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoWhat makes a good manager good? We let the data tell us -- and find that hard-to-observe things like attention and control have large effects on productivity, and are drastically undervalued in manager pay.pdf | feb 2019Revise and resubmit, Review of Economic StudiesReturns to On-the-job Soft Skills TrainingSoft skills training on-the-job boosts worker productivity and generates large returns for the firm.pdf | december 2019Reject and resubmit, Journal of Political EconomyResources, Conflict, and Economic Development in Africa
No understanding of the economic development of modern Africa can be complete without an appreciation of the role of natural resources. Our study is at the nexus of resources, conflict, and development, using theory and high-resolution spatial data from sub-Saharan Africa. Our results help explain why the most resource-rich countries are no better off than the most resource-poor.pdf | january 2019Revise and resubmit, Journal of Development EconomicsFetal Origins of Mental Health: Evidence from AfricaConflict and the Formation of Political Beliefs in Africawith James FenskeExpectations, Wage Hikes, and Worker Voicewith Teresa Molina and Anant NyshadhamA randomized evaluation of Hirschman's (1970) seminal theory. Workers quit when wage increases do not meet their expectations, but enabling voice mitigates this exit.
pdf | may 2020
No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm
with Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo
Do talented managers match with productive workers, or with those who are struggling to perform? We find negative assortative matching of managers and workers. Despite supermodularity of production, "misallocating" managerial skill in this way may be optimal for firms who value buyer relationships.
pdf | march 2020
Helping Children Catch Up: Early Life Shocks and the Progresa ExperimentCash transfers mitigate a large fraction of the negative impact of early life shocks on educational attainment and employment outcomes.pdf | january 2020Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracting Inside the Firm
with Jean-Francois Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo
Relational contracts are essential building blocks of the theory of the firm, but we know little about the form or function of these contracts in practice. We study the behavior of managers who share workers across teams to weather absenteeism shocks. Relationships have some smoothing value, but many potentially beneficial transfers are left unrealized. We simulate the gains to increased relationship formation and find that the firm could reduce worker misallocation and increase productivity substantially by spurring relationship formation.pdf | january 2020Diagnosing Quality: Learning, Amenities, and the Demand for Health Care
with Emilio Gutierrez, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo
Increasing access to nontechnical amenities substantially drives up the demand for cataract surgery in Mexico.
pdf | january 2020
Hostel Takeover: Living Conditions, Reference Dependence, and the Wellbeing of Migrant Workers
with Anant Nyshadham and Huayu Xu
Worker satisfaction depends critically on how expectations are set by firms. Migrant workers experienced large losses in subjective wellbeing when randomized improvements in hostel living conditions were more modest than expected.
pdf | april 2019
Protecting Infants from Natural Disasters: The Case of Vitamin A Supplementation and a Tornado in Bangladesh
with Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson, Parul Christian, Alain Labrique, Jonathan Sugimoto, Abu Ahmed Shamim, and Keith P. West, Jr.
Can policy protect against the often devastating human impacts of environmental shocks? We study this question by leveraging data from a situation in which a tornado tore through an area involved in a double-blind cluster-randomized controlled trial of at-birth vitamin A supplementation in Bangladesh.
pdf | december 2018
