I am an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of environmental and development economics. My research focuses on the health and human capital impacts of exposure to environmental harms, particularly air pollution. I also have work on the role of information frictions in economic development. A cross-cutting theme in my research is how behavioral economics can yield insights into how people adapt to a changing environment.
My undergraduate studies were in Economics and Religion (with a focus on Buddhist Philosophy) at Middlebury College. My senior thesis there focused on the role of partisan preferences in taxation and was published in the Journal of Public Economics. I studied abroad in Nepal as a college student and have ongoing fieldwork there as part of a J-PAL funded RCT. Prior to UC Davis, I worked at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Nairobi, Kenya, and then spent four years at Mathematica Policy Research, conducting international development impact evaluations in global health, energy infrastructure, and social protection.
I am on the job market in the 2026-2027 academic year and can be reached at msbrooks@ucdavis.edu. Here is my CV and here is my job market paper.
News
- Excited to share that “Strengthening Women’s Livestock Cooperatives in Nepal with an Innovative Technology Bundle” has received an additional ~$50,000 of funding from J-PAL to explore long-run impacts.
- I will present “The Pollution–Productivity Curve: Non-Linear Effects and Adaptation in High-Pollution Environments” at the Center for Effective Global Action Research Retreat at UC Berkeley in October.
- I will present “Monetary and Non-monetary Barriers to Accessing Environmental Public Benefit Programs” at the 2026 Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management Fall Research Conference in Boston in November.
- I will TA for ARE 133 Introduction to Behavioral Economics in Fall 2026, and will present on “Effective AI use as a student” in the Managerial Economics Student Café in December.
Research in Progress
- The Pollution–Productivity Curve: Non-Linear Effects and Adaptation in High-Pollution Environments (Job Market Paper)
With Faraz Usmani. Submitted.
This paper studies whether workers adapt to air pollution using ball-by-ball data from Indian cricket, where match schedules and training locations generate variation in exposure. A 10 µg/m3 increase in match-day PM2.5 reduces bowlers’ performance relative to batters’ by about 1 percent. This effect is statistically significant only in the top pollution quintile (over 5 times the U.S. annual average), although we cannot reject a linear dose–response. Higher exposure in the prior month attenuates this effect, consistent with adaptation, but lowers performance by more than attenuation offsets. Results suggest lowering baseline pollution, not merely averting extremes, yields productivity gains.Invited Seminars: Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi · University of Massachusetts, Amherst · Middlebury College
Conferences: AERE 2025 · UCSB Occasional Workshop in E&RE · UC Boulder E&RE Workshop · PacDev 2026 · WCERE 2026 · AAEA 2026 - Monetary and Non-monetary Barriers to Accessing Environmental Public Benefit Programs: Experimental Evidence from California
With Shotaro Nakamura and Collin Weigel
This paper shows that administrative hassles in an environmental public benefit program application shift the applicant pool away from the intended beneficiaries. In a randomized controlled trial with 100,000 households in California, we randomly vary the subsidy rate (0-100%) and administrative hassles in an application for a subsidized air purifier. Lowering the subsidy rate lowers application rates non-linearly, with larger marginal reductions at higher subsidy levels. Hassles substantially reduce the application rate. We find suggestive evidence that these hassles disproportionately screen out intended beneficiaries: the longer form deters below-poverty-line applicants, and the residence requirement deters those with above-median particulate exposure.Conferences: APPAM 2026 (scheduled) · AAEA 2026 · AFE 2025 · UC Berkeley/Davis Giannini Student Conference 2025, 2026 · Funding: California Air Resources Board · PAP: AEA RCT Registry
- Strengthening Women’s Livestock Cooperatives in Nepal with an Innovative Technology Bundle
With Travis Lybbert, Nick Magnan, Conner Mullally, and Bhola Shrestha
This paper shows that relaxing market information constraints raises sales and revenue for smallholder goat producers in rural Nepal. In a 2×2 cluster-randomized factorial experiment among approximately 70,000 farmers in 93 cooperatives, we cross-randomize a market linkage app for producers with a continuing education app for community animal health workers. The education app improves health workers' knowledge but does not shift goat health within our study period. We do not detect any additional effects from bundling the two apps. Back-of-envelope calculations suggest the market app returned over three dollars in additional farmer revenue per dollar of setup cost.Conferences: AAEA 2026 · Funding: J-PAL DAISI · PAP: AEA RCT Registry
Partisan Differences in Adaptation to Wildfire Smoke: Evidence from Indoor Air Quality in California
With Jamie Hansen-Lewis- Global Spillovers in Agricultural Technology Development
With Ashish Shenoy
Education
- Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis, Expected June 2027
- M.S. in Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis, 2024
- B.A. in Economics and Religion (double major), Middlebury College, 2017
- Kathmandu University, Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, 2014-2015