We examine the effect of rainfall shocks on dowry deaths using data from 583 Indian districts for 2002-2007. We find that a one standard deviation decline in annual rainfall from the local mean increases reported dowry deaths by 7.8 percent. Wet shocks have no apparent effect. We examine...

Using detailed data on firm operations along with a novel method of measuring political connections, we study whether and how political connections matter for firms during an economic downturn. In the context of India’s Demonetization episode of 2016, we use a synthetic...

How does isolation affect the economic activity of cities? Transport costs are widely considered an important barrier to local economic activity but their impact in developing countries is not well-studied. This paper investigates the role of inter-city transport costs in determining the income...