Research
Published Papers
Using Household Rosters from Survey Data to Estimate All-cause Mortality during COVID in India
Joint with Anup Malani
Published in Journal of Development Economics, 2022
Abstract: Official statistics on deaths from COVID undercount deaths due to lack of testing. In developed countries, death registries are used to estimate excess deaths due to COVID during the pandemic. However, few developing countries had complete death registries even before the pandemic and the pandemic further stressed administrative capacities. As a substitute, we estimate all-cause excess deaths in India using the member rosters of a large, representative household panel survey. We estimate roughly 4.2 million excess deaths during the pandemic through February 2022. We cannot demonstrate causality between COVID and deaths, but the timing and age structure of deaths is consistent with the COVID pandemic and excess deaths are positively correlated with reported infections. Finally, we find that excess deaths were higher among higher-income persons and were negatively associated with mobility. The methods in this paper can be used in countries with a household panel to measure health-related demographic indicators.
Working Papers
Impact and Incidence of Housing Subsidies in Urban Slums: Evidence from India
Job Market Paper
Winner SOCAE 2023 Best Paper Award
Abstract: Improving housing conditions in urban slums is a key challenge for all developing countries. Public programs to move slum dwellers into formal houses often require them to give up their existing house, and make complementary financial investments to receive the benefits. These participation costs or "ordeals" make the incidence and impact of the program ambiguous. In this paper I study the incidence and impact of India's flagship house construction grant costing 2% of the annual budget. Despite the need for complementary investments, I show that the incidence of the program is progressive. This is driven by the self-selection into the program of those with worse houses. The grant has a significant causal impact on a house quality index, driven by a 60pp increase in probability of having a concrete roof. However, I rule out large impacts on other dimensions of house quality. I provide a theoretical framework and show that the program take up rate is a sufficient statistic for the welfare benefit of the grant. The optimal policy parameters need to account for selection into the program at different benefit levels and the total deadweight loss.
Vaccine Allocation Priorities Using Disease Surveillance and Economic Data
Joint with Anup Malani, Satej Soman, Alice Chen, and Darius Lakdawalla
Abstract: Vaccination is a critical tool, along with suppression and treatment, for controlling epidemics such as SARS-CoV-2. To maximize the impact of vaccination, doses should be allocated to the highest value targets, accounting for health and potential economic benefits. We examine what allocation strategy is optimal and how to translate that strategy into actionable procurement decisions in the context of India. We compare 3 different allocation strategies (oldest first, highest contact rate first, random order) across 4 outcomes (lives saved, life-years saved, value of statistical lives saved, value of statistical life-years saved). We make 3 methodological contributions. First, we estimate the incremental health benefit of vaccination using novel, local seroprevalence data from India. Second, we estimate the value of statistical life-years using disaggregated, monthly data on consumption during the pandemic. Third, and most importantly, we estimate social demand curves for vaccines that can practically guide government procurement decisions. Our analysis yields 4 novel findings. First, the need to speed-up vaccination does not justify deviation from elderly-first prioritization. Second, much of the value of vaccination comes from improvements in consumption rather than longevity. Moreover, vaccination increases the value of a life year because it increases consumption. Third, social demand for vaccination falls over time as natural immunity from infections increases. Therefore, the slower a country vaccinates its population, the fewer doses it should procure. Fourth, there is enough variation in consumption and infection risk that it makes sense to vaccinate some areas before others. Our approach of connecting epidemiological models and data on health and consumption to economic valuation methods generalizes to other infection control strategies, such as suppression, and public health crises, such as influenza and HIV.
Media coverage: The Print
Tool for state governments to determine optimal vaccination policy
Joint with multiple authors from Govt of Tamil Nadu and IDFC Institute
Revise and resubmit at Nature: Scientific Reports
Abstract: Four rounds of serological surveys were conducted, spanning two COVID waves (October 2020 and April-May 2021), in Tamil Nadu (population 72 million) state in India. Each round included representative populations in each district of the state, totaling 20,000 persons per round. State-level seroprevalence was 31.5% in round 1 (October-November 2020), after India’s first COVID wave. Seroprevalence fell to 22.9% in 2 (April 2021), consistent with waning of SARS-Cov-2 antibodies from natural infection. Seroprevalence rose to 67.1% by round 3 (June-July 2021), reflecting with infections from the Delta-variant induced second COVID wave accounting for 74% of the increase. Seroprevalence rose to 93.1% by round 4 (December 2021-January 2022), with vaccinations accounting for 63% of the increasereflecting higher vaccination rates. Antibodies also appear to wane after vaccination. Seroprevalence in urban areas was higher than in rural areas, but the gap shrunk over time (35.7 v. 25.7% in round 1, 89.8% v. 91.4% in round 4) as the epidemic spread even in low-density rural areas. The study documents substantial waning of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at the population level and demonstrates how to calculate the extent to which infection and vaccination separately contribute to seroprevalence estimates.
Research in Progress
Targeting Social Security Transfers to Construction Workers
Joint with Kartik Srivastava
Together with Government of Odisha
Adjusting for Missingness in Survey Data
Impact of Opening Medical Colleges on Rural Health Care
Joint with Fulvia Budillon
Information Frictions in High School Choices
Joint with Torsha Chakravorty and Naveen Kumar
Suspended projects
Experimental Evaluation of Same Language Subtitling
Joint with Jalnidh Kaur
Awarded Post Primary Education (PPE) Initiative grant
Awarded Co-Impact grant joint with Planet Read
Concrete Comprehension? At-scale Evidence on Innovations to Improve Teacher Effectiveness in India
Joint with Andreas de Barros and Jalnidh Kaur
Awarded USAID DIV grant