about me

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at UC San Diego. I am also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), an Affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA). My research deals with welfare and corruption in developing countries and with learning processes.

publications

• Filtered Social Learning (.bib). Journal of Political Economy 119 (4), 2011, pp. 686-720.
  Do decentralized exchanges of knowledge lead to efficient aggregate learning?
• Political Aid Cycles (.bib). American Economic Review 102 (7), 2012, pp. 3516-30. With Michael Faye.
  Do donors use foreign aid (ODA) to influence elections in developing countries?
• Targeting with Agents (.bib). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming. With Antonia Attanassova, Mariane Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan.
  How should a social planner design targeting rules when he knows the implementing agents are corrupt?
• Corruption Dynamics: the Golden Goose Effect (.bib). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming. With Sandip Sukhtankar.
  Do corrupt agents respond to dynamic incentives as predicted by the Becker-Stigler theory?

working papers

• The Marginal Rate of Corruption in Public Programs (.bib). Submitted. With Sandip Sukhtankar.
  How should policy-makers determine the optimal size of "leaky" public programs?
• Education and Knowledge Spillovers (.bib). Submitted.
  What spillover mechanism is most consistent with reduced-form models, knowledge policy, and the data?
• Managing Self-Confidence: Theory and Experimental Evidence (.bib). Under revision. With Markus Mobius, Muriel Niederle and Tanya Rosenblat.
  Do people bias their learning behavior to protect their own self-image? (experimental instructions)

work in progress

• Social Learning and Consumer Demand. With Markus Mobius and Tanya Rosenblat
  How do peers in a social network affect demand for new products?
• Smartcards. With Karthik Muralidharan and Sandip Sukhtankar
  How does biometric authentication technology affect welfare program performance?
• Learning to Help.
  Why aren't Christmas presents and charitable giving more effective?