- CV.
Achyuta Adhvaryu
Tata Chancellor's Endowed Professor of Economics
&
Inaugural Director, 21st Century India Center
School of Global Policy and StrategyUniversity of California, San Diego
Affiliations: NBER, J-PAL, BREAD, GBL, IGC, CEGA
PhD, economics, Yale University (2009)
BA, math and economics, University of Pennsylvania (2004)
Research interests: development, organizations, health, applied micro
BE 300 (Applied Microeconomics; BBA)
BUSABRD 320 (Doing Business in India, BBA)
ECON 666 (Economic Development, PhD)
- TEACHING.
In 2023-2024, I will be co-teaching a PhD course on organizations in low-income countries,
and master's courses on new economic opportunities and challenges in India and on the economics of organizations.
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PREVIOUS SYLLABI:
University of Michigan:
ECON 666: Economic Development, 2018-2022 | PhD | Syllabus
BUSABRD 320: Doing Business in India, 2018-2020 | BBA | Syllabus
BE 300 / BE 557: Applied Economics, 2015-2020 | BBA / master's | 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
Yale:
HPM 591a: Global Health Economics, 2010-2012 | MPH | Syllabus
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- RESEARCH.Publications | Working Papers | Work in Progress
Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity
with Namrata Kala and Anant Nyshadham
When workers face environmental shocks, managers reallocate tasks within teams, shifting workers away from jobs in which their performance is most affected.
pdf | Journal of Political Economy, 2022, 130:1 (lead article)
Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training
with Namrata Kala and Anant NyshadhamSoft skills training on-the-job boosts worker productivity and generates large returns for the firm.
pdf | august 2021 | Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming)
Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics
with 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 | august 2021 | Review of Economic Studies (forthcoming)
Expectations, 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 | Economic Journal (forthcoming)
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)
Conflict and the Formation of Political Beliefs in Africa
with James Fenske
Helping Children Catch Up: Early Life Shocks and the Progresa Experiment
Cash transfers mitigate a large fraction of the negative impact of early life shocks on educational attainment and employment outcomes.
pdf | Economic Journal, 2022, 132(645)
Protecting Infants from Natural Disasters: The Case of Vitamin A Supplementation and a Tornado in Bangladesh
with Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson, Teresa Molina, 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 | Journal of Development Economics, 2022, 158
Resources, Conflict, and Economic Development in Africa
with James Fenske, Gaurav Khanna, and Anant Nyshadham
Our results help explain why conflict keeps the most resource-rich countries no better off than the most resource-poor.
pdf | Journal of Development Economics, 2021 (Issue 149)
Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health
The 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, 2020, 102(4)
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)
(Mis)information and Anxiety: Experimental Evidence from a Covid-19 Information Campaign
with Sadish D. and Anant NyshadhamWe ask whether information can be delivered without negative consequences to mental health. We randomly assigned individuals to receive Covid-19 information through text messages, a pre-recorded audio message, or phone calls. Phone calls were effective at engaging individuals. They improved Covid-19 knowledge and reduced depression and anxiety; the amount of information delivered does not account for this effect.
pdf | june 2021 | Journal of Development Economics (forthcoming)
Booms, Busts, and Household Enterprise: Evidence from Coffee Farmers in Tanzania
Health, Enterprise, and Labor Complementarity in the Householdwith Anant Nyshadham
Endowments at Birth and Parents' Investments in Childrenwith Anant Nyshadham
Returns 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 Sharma
Schooling, Child Labor and the Returns to Healthcare in Tanzaniawith Anant Nyshadham
The Long-Run Impacts of Adult Deaths on Older Household Members in Tanzaniawith Kathleen Beegle - RESEARCH.
An Anatomy of Performance Monitoring
with Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoPerformance monitoring works because managers can better target skill investments in their workers. But skills depreciate, so failing to refresh training can result in dilution of productivity impacts over time.
pdf | june 2022 | R&R, Journal of Political Economy
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 | july 2020 | accepted, Journal of Public Economics
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 | may 2022 | R&R, Review of Economics and Statistics
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracting Inside the Firm
with Jean-Francois Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo
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 | october 2021 | accepted, Journal of the European Economic Association
On the Allocation and Impacts of Managerial Trainingwith Emir Murathanoglu and Anant Nyshadham
Managerial soft skills training improves productivity, but misallocation can substantially dampen its impacts.
pdf | supplemental appendix | june 2023 (NEW!)
Child Health, Parental Well-Being, and the Social Safety Net
with N. Meltem Daysal, Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson, Teresa Molina, and Herdis Steingrimsdottir
Parents' preferences to personally provide care for their children during the critical years following a severe health shock drive persistent changes in labor supply and income -- evidence from childhood cancers in Denmark.
pdf | may 2023 (NEW!)
Organizational Responses to Product CyclesAn anatomy of the incredible, flexible organization -- how a leading auto manufacturer responds to the ever-increasing complexity of production associated with the introduction of new models on the shop floor.
pdf | march 2023 (NEW!)
Diagnosing 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 | july 2020
Sotto Voce: The Impacts of Technology to Enhance Worker Voice
with Smit Gade, Teresa Molina, and Anant Nyshadham
Enabling worker voice through a two-way, anonymous, SMS-based technology decreases absenteeism and turnover, despite infrequent usage. Our findings suggest a substantial option value of voice, which can promote positive workplace behaviors even when workers do not directly avail themselves of the technology.
pdf | september 2021
Fetal Origins of Mental Health: Evidence from Africa
