My Working Papers
Increasing Recycling Behavior through Social Norms: Evidence
from Minnesota (Job Market Paper)
I build a theoretical model where the household optimizes the amount it recycles given that the utility of the household members consists of incentive-based components as well
as non-monetary motives. Using this model, I show that when the social norm of recycling rate increases, the recycling
rate of the household rises and waste generated declines. The empirical framework emerges from these two results where I test if social norms lead to higher recycling rate and lower waste per capita in the counties of Minnesota. The evidence from the data suggests that social norms lead to lower waste per capita but has no impact on recycling rate.
Combating Particle Pollution: Estimating the Impact of Pollution
Standards on All-Cause Mortality in India
While India's had over 3 decades of environmental regulations, no paper that we know has estimated the impact of these regulations on mortality that includes all ages. We show that Indian regulations have been effective in reducing the mortality rate. Although effective, we claim that the regulations will have even greater gains in health if they move from their current focus on coarse particulate matter to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), i.e., the most dangerous of all pollutants.
Pollution Attributed Mortality in India
My paper improves upon previous research by identifying the causal relationship between air quality and
human health by using a panel dataset for India. Rather than simply extrapolating estimates for countries like the U.S., I arrive at
the functional form of the concentration-response curve, for the first time using actual mortality data for India, thus estimating the burden of disease due to pollution for India.