This thesis consists of three essays addressing open empirical questions in applied microeconomics. Chapter 1 attempts to quantify the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture. I use historical data on past yearly weather fluctuations and crop yields to measure the effect of these weather...

This dissertation consists of three chapters on international capital flows. Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of innovations in the investment opportunity set, captured by changes in expected asset returns, as an important mechanism to explain international capital flows. More specifically,...

In this dissertation, I provide evidence of the causal impact on mortgage supply of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and the "Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) Act", laws requiring banks and the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), respectively, to help improve credit access for...

Many ethnically diverse countries have policies that encourage integration across ethnic groups. This dissertation investigates the impact and welfare implications of a residential desegregation policy in Singapore, the ethnic housing quotas. I employ both reduced form and structural form...

This dissertation consists of three chapters on the youth and low-skilled labor markets. In Chapter 1, I show that teen employment is significantly more responsive than adult employment to immigration, and that growth in low-skilled immigration appears to be a partial explanation for recent...

This dissertation consists of an empirical chapter, an econometrics chapter, and a theoretical chapter, all of which advance the study of the price elasticity of expenditure on medical care. In Chapter 1, I estimate the price elasticity of expenditure on medical care across the quantiles of the...

This thesis consists of three essays on information, decision-making and health. All three concern the relationship between the choices consumers would make if they were "fully informed" in an appropriate sense and the choices we actually observe. Chapter 1 considers how we can determine whether...

In this thesis, I study the relationship between macroeconomic risks and asset prices. In the first chapter, I establish that inflation risk is priced in the cross-section of stock returns: stocks that have low returns during inflationary times command a risk premium. I estimate a market price...

In this thesis, I study the interactions between various aspects of the financial system and macroeconomic volatility in a globally integrated environment. In Chapter 1, I illustrate that an efficient allocation of liquidity across projects mitigates the economy's responsiveness to global...

This thesis examines questions at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance. Chapter 1 studies the persistent effects of a decrease in firms' ability to borrow. I develop a tractable model of deleveraging that emphasizes (i) firms as suppliers of financial assets to consumers and (ii) the...