Research

Working Papers

• Do Compulsory Schooling Laws Affect Fertility Behaviors and Marriages? Evidence from India (Under Review)

• Exchange Rate Volatility and International Students’ Educational Choice: Evidence from U.S. (Revise and Resubmit)

• Underemployed Worker’s Health: Evidence from States’ Minimum Wage Levels with Soumak Basumallik (Under Review)

• Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Childbirth Delivery Care in India with Shamma Alam and Bijetri Bose (Under Review)

• The Intergenerational Effect of Parental Education on Child Health: Evidence from India

  Abstract

  The paper investigates the causal impact of parental education on child health outcomes by exploiting a compulsory schooling reform in India which required parents to complete eight years of primary education. The exogenous variation in parental education induced by the reform implementation timing in different states across the birth cohorts of parents is explored using an instrumental variable difference-in-difference approach. Findings based on data from the National Family Health Survey suggest that increased total years of parental education improved the birth weight, weight-for-age, and height of their offspring. Parental education also increased the probability of a child being currently breastfed and improved understanding of a child's measles immunization. I also examine different household socio-economic pathways which can impact children's health. I find significant improvements in all the household facilities and improved sanitation in Indian society. There is little evidence of a causal relationship between a father's education and his health behavior, but mothers in Indian society take better care of their health in terms of having antenatal and postnatal care and increased probability of health check-ups which gets transmitted to improved health outcomes for their children.

• The Effect of Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Insurance Coverage by the U.S. Natives and Immigrants

  Abstract

  The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 included an expansion of Medicaid public health insurance to more low income individuals beginning in 2014. The ACA aimed to achieve nearly universal health insurance coverage in the United States through a combination of mandates, regulations on insurers, expanding Medicaid subsidies and health insurance exchanges, most of which took effect in 2014. This paper estimates the effects of the ACA on health insurance coverage using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) by utilizing difference-in-difference-in-differences model that exploit cross-sectional variation in the intensity of treatment arising from state participation in the Medicaid expansion in 2014 and comparing the effects among natives and immigrants. This study contributes to understand the limits of the ACA in reducing disparities in insurance coverage and exploring how patterns of coverage differ for different sources of insurance among the natives and immigrants. It is observed that the gap is lower in magnitude between the natives and immigrants in terms of public and Medicaid insurance coverage after the ACA implementation.

Works in Progress

• Women’s Empowerment in India: Evidence from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) policy with Sharbani Bhattacharjee

• Family and Professional Liaison and its Effect on Immigrants Labor Market

• Age Discrimination and Health of Older Workers