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. I also have work on the role of information frictions in economic development.
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 Mathematica Policy Research for four years on a range of international development impact evaluations in global health, energy infrastructure, and social protection.
In addition to research, I enjoy inspiring students to see how economics can provide useful tools and models for analyzing issues like climate change, environmental justice, and income inequality.
Please click here to view my CV.
News
I will be attending the World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economics in Portugal this June where I will present “The Pollution–Productivity Curve: Non-linear Effects and Adaptation in High-Pollution Environments.”
I will be attending the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting in Kansas City this July where I will present on each of the following projects: “The Pollution–Productivity Curve”, “Monetary and Non-monetary Barriers to Accessing Environmental Public Benefit Programs”, and “Strengthening Women’s Livestock Cooperatives in Nepal with an Innovative Technology Bundle.”
If you will be around and want to chat about research or just catch up over coffee, feel free to reach out!
Research in Progress
- The Pollution–Productivity Curve: Non-linear Effects and Adaptation in High-pollution Environments [Draft available upon request]
With Faraz Usmani
Over 3.6 billion people are chronically exposed to hazardous levels of fine particulate matter air pollution. This paper provides novel evidence that workers in such settings partially adapt to chronic exposure but that adaptation does not offset cumulative harm. We estimate the effect of PM2.5 on labor productivity using individual-level performance data from 14 years of professional cricket in India (2008--2022), paired with a machine learning data product providing daily PM2.5 estimates at 10km resolution. Leveraging variation in day-to-day exposure generated by league scheduling rules, we find that a 10 microgram-per-cubic-meter increase in same-day PM2.5 (half a standard deviation) reduces bowler performance by about 1 percent relative to batters, consistent with bowlers' heightened exposure via higher respiration rates. Effects are non-linear, with the largest marginal damages above approximately 50 microgram-per-cubic-meter--levels common in developing countries but uncommon in causal studies. Using variation in chronic exposure from player assignment to teams according to salary cap rules, we find that acute shocks harm those with the highest past exposure approximately 40 percent less than those with median exposure histories, indicating adaptation over both 30-day and career-spanning horizons. Nevertheless, chronic exposure degrades performance by more than adaptation offsets, except under extremely rare pollution conditions. These findings underscore the importance of regulating the second moment of the pollution distribution: non-linearity implies that marginal damages are largest when pollution is in the upper tail, while partial adaptation implies that spikes above mean levels amplify marginal damages.Invited Seminars: Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi · University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Conferences: AERE 2025 · UCSB Occasional Workshop in E&RE · UC Boulder E&RE Workshop · PacDev 2026 · WCERE 2026 (scheduled) · AAEA 2026 (scheduled) Monetary and Non-monetary Barriers to Accessing Environmental Public Benefit Programs: Experimental Evidence from California
With Shotaro Nakamura and Collin Weigel
Conferences: AAEA 2026 (scheduled) · AFE 2025 · Giannini Student Conference 2025 · Funding: California Air Resources Board · PAP: AEA RCT RegistryGot Goat? The Effects of a Digital Inventory Tool on Livestock Market Outcomes in Rural Nepal
With Travis Lybbert, Conner Mullally, and Nick Magnan
Conferences: AAEA 2025 · Funding: J-PAL DAISI · PAP: AEA RCT Registry- Global Spillovers in Agricultural Technology Development
With Ashish Shenoy
Education
- Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis (in progress)
- 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