WORKING PAPERS
"3G Internet and Women's Empowerment" (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: Digital transformation is rapidly reshaping economies worldwide, yet its implications for women’s empowerment in developing regions remain poorly understood. This paper examines the impact of mobile broadband expansion on women’s empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa by combining geocoded household survey data from 15 countries with 3G network coverage data from 2003 to 2023. To address endogeneity, I exploit exogenous variation in lightning strike frequency as an instrumental variable for 3G network rollout. The results show that increased 3G coverage significantly raises women’s overall employment—driven primarily by self-employment and agricultural work—but simultaneously reduces their participation in major household decisions and increases their exposure to intimate partner violence. Further analysis reveals that men in areas with greater 3G network coverage are more likely to justify domestic violence in situations when women deviate from traditional gender roles and express a stronger desire for additional children, whereas women’s acceptance of domestic violence and fertility preferences remain largely unchanged. Overall, these findings support the male backlash theory, suggesting that men may resort to coercive control when women’s expanding economic opportunities or digital connectivity are perceived as threats to gender hierarchies.
“Bank-Branch Expansion and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from India”
Abstract: In 2005, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiated a branch authorization policy reform that incentivizes banks to expand new branches in the “underbanked” districts defined as having a district population per bank branch higher than the national average. This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to explore the impacts of this bank branch expansion policy on labor market outcomes. Using household data from the National Sample Survey matched with RBI’s district-level banking data, I find that, after four years, the bank branch expansion policy caused a roughly 15% increase in individuals’ daily wage and a 17% increase in weekly total labor earnings in the treatment districts relative to the control districts. Although there is no significant impact on overall employment, the results suggest that the policy reform leads to a reallocation of labor from agriculture to non-agriculture. I also find that the individuals in the treatment districts are more likely to report being regular employees but less likely to report being casual laborers relative to control districts.
"Climate Shocks and Social Intolerance", with Idris Kambala
Abstract: Droughts in developing countries can have devastating effects on agricultural productivity, local economies, and livelihoods, intensifying social tensions among different groups. This study investigates whether droughts affect individuals’ social intolerance, defined as the unwillingness to accept people from other social groups or identities as neighbors. Using geo-referenced data on drought conditions across Africa and individual-level data from Afrobarom- eter surveys conducted between 2014 and 2021 in Africa, we find that droughts increase social intolerance: a severe or extreme drought shock significantly increases the probability that an individual is intolerant toward people of other religions by 18%, toward people from different ethnicities by 28%, and immigrants or foreign workers by 17%. This effect is concentrated among individuals living in rural areas and is more pronounced for those with lower levels of education, as well as for those residing in areas with low ethnic or religious diversity. We also explore the potential mechanisms underlying these effects using a variety of geospatial data on crop production and night lights, and our findings suggest that drought shocks negatively impact major crop yields, local economic activity, and employment, which may subsequently lead to increased intolerance among people.
"Mobile Internet Growth and Services Trade", with Aerfate Haimiti and William Hauk
Abstract: This article studies how internet connectivity, both overall internet use and mobile broadband access, affects international trade, focusing on services. Using data for over 100 countries from 2004 to 2019, we estimate a two-stage structural gravity model linking digital infrastructure to bilateral trade flows. A 10 percent rise in internet use in the importing country raises bilateral services trade by roughly 7 percent, with comparable effects on the exporter side. The strongest responses occur in telecommunications, information technology, finance, and intellectual property services, while the effects on goods trade are modest. Mobile broadband coverage produces similar but somewhat smaller impacts: 2G-and-higher and 3G-and-higher networks both yield positive and significant elasticities, particularly in bandwidthintensive sectors. These results suggest that expanding both fixed and mobile internet access lowers trade costs and broadens participation in global markets.
PUBLICATIONS
Is Maternal Employment Detrimental for Children’s Nutritional Status? Evidence from Bangladesh, with Rejaul Karim Bakshi and M. Mehedi Hasan. Review of Development Economics, 26(1), February 2022.
Abstract: This paper explores the effect of maternal employment on the nutritional status of children below age 5 years in Bangladesh using data from the 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Since mothers’ choice to participate in the labor market is endogenous, the estimation of the causal effect of maternal employment on child health is statistically challenging. To correct for the endogeneity of maternal employment, we employ instrumental variable (IV) estimation. While our ordinary least squares results show that mothers’ employment has no significant effect on children's nutritional outcome, the IV estimates suggest that maternal employment significantly decreases children's height-for-age Z-score. This result is contrary to conventional wisdom advocating for maternal employment to positively affect child health and well-being. We, therefore, argue for effective policy interventions—such as childcare centers at workplaces, flexibility in working hours including part-time options for mothers, restraining child marriages, and strengthening maternal and child health-care services through community health centers—to foster children's health as well as maternal employment in the country.
Climate Sensitivity of Wheat Yield in Bangladesh: Implications for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 6, with M. Mehedi Hasan, Mohammad Alauddin, Abdur Rasid Sarkar, and Mahiuddin Alamgir. Land use Policy, 87:104023, September 2019.
Abstract: Significant manifestations of adverse effects of climate change exist for crop agriculture throughout the developing world including Bangladesh. Despite wheat being the second most important staple food, any rigorous analysis of its sensitivity to climate change remains an unexplored area of research. This paper fills this gap by investigating wheat yield sensitivity to climate change over time and across climatic zones using 45-year district level panel data. Results revealed rising trends in average seasonal temperature and number of seasonal dry days and downward trends in planting and flowering stage rainfall. The rise in average temperature and number of dry days adversely affected wheat yield while greater planting and flowering stage rainfall has improved yield. Significant variations across regions and a positive trend over time were evident. The study’s policy implications are explored in terms of the potential to expand wheat cultivation and its role in achieving SDG 2 regarding food security and SDG 6 concerning sustainable water management. Strengthening institutional support systems, market accessibility, science-driven climate change adaptations - including generation and dissemination of drought tolerant wheat varieties and enhancing farmers’ capacity to switch from rice to wheat, constitute key areas of policy intervention critically important for achieving SDG 2 and SDG 6.
WORK IN PROGRESS
"Regulatory Forbearance, Credit Misallocation, and Zombie Lending", with Md Rezwanul Hoque, Sharjil Haque, and Abu Shonchoy (Draft Available Upon Request)
Abstract: This paper examines the negative externalities of “evergreening” credit in Bangladesh. Using bank-firm level data, we document the rise of zombie firms—unproductive and unviable businesses that survive on cheap credit despite generating insufficient profits to service their debt. We find that troubled banks allocated significantly more credit to these firms relative to healthy borrowers. To identify these effects, we exploit an unexpected change in Bangladesh Bank policy that reduced regulatory inspection of banks’ credit portfolio, a form of hierarchical regulatory forbearance that effectively allowed banks to extend credit, thereby keeping zombies afloat. Consistent with the congestion externalities associated with zombie lending, we show that a higher share of zombie firms significantly impaired the investment, productivity, and sales performance of healthier firms. Overall, our results highlight the unintended consequences of hierarchical regulatory forbearance, particularly when borrowers cannot substitute bank credit with alternative forms of debt.
"Mobile Broadband and Digital Financial Technology Adoption", with Khandaker Alam, Rezwanul Hoque, Alicia Plemmons, and Abu Shonchoy