Governments are increasingly reliant on the reacquisition of water rights as a mechanism for recovering overexploited basins. Yet, serious concerns have recently been raised about the efficacy and operational dimensions of existing programs. Water buyback is typically implemented as the purchase...

India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the world's largest public works program, has been demonstrated to have beneficial impacts on a wide range of outcomes, but its effects on agricultural productivity have been relatively understudied (Sukhtankar, 2017). We test whether...

We estimate the effects of temperature on human capital production in India. We show that high temperatures reduce both math and reading test scores through an agricultural income mechanism. The roll-out of a workfare program, by providing a safety net for the poor, substantially weakens the...

How do rising temperatures affect long-term labor reallocation in developing economies? In this paper, we examine how increases in temperature impact structural transformation and urbanization within Indian districts between 1951 and 2011. We find that rising temperatures are associated with...

More than one billion people worldwide receive cash or in-kind transfers from social assistance programs. In low-income countries, these transfers are often conditioned on participation in labor-intensive public works to rehabilitate local infrastructure or natural resources. Despite their...

As climate change accelerates, the frequency of extreme weather conditions will increase. We assess the impact of rising temperatures and drought on the employment outcomes of working–age individuals in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. We merge high-resolution weather data with panel survey...