Economic activity in developing countries is labor-intensive, low-scale, and family run, with substantial family managerial time spent supervising hired labor. We use a randomized control trial that subsidizes access to rental equipment markets to study the impact of the adoption of mechanized...

This article discusses son preference in India, including both greater investment in sons and the fertility preference for sons. Regarding differential investment, I focus on child health and show that gender gaps in inputs and outcomes have narrowed in recent years. Nonetheless, girls remain...

We measure the impact of the initial Indian national COVID-19 lockdown on digital activity using browser histories of 1,094 individuals, spanning over 31.5 million website visits on computers and mobile devices. Reflecting the predicted increase in the value of online activity, both men and...

This paper examines how liquidity shocks caused by currency shortages impact exports. We explore this in the context of India's 2016 currency demonetization, a sudden and unexpected policy announcement by the government that large-denomination currency notes--comprising 86% of the country's...

Public-sector organizations face a tradeoff: allowing workers discretion at the point of service to adapt to local needs, versus rigid harmonization to ensure uniform service delivery. We examine this tradeoff in the context of secondary schools in Odisha, India, where the centrally set...

Can temporary wartime mobilization change the long-run development trajectory of an economy? We study how mobilization for World War II in colonial India influenced its subsequent development. From 1939 to 1945, the British colonial government purchased massive amounts of war materiel within...

Does the ability to generate verifiable digital financial histories, with customers having data-sharing rights, improve credit access? We answer this using India's launch of an Open-Banking based public digital payment infrastructure (UPI). Using rarely available data on the universe of consumer...