Working Papers

1. Unintended Consequences of Sanitation Investment: Negative Externalities on Water Quality and Health in India [Osaka University ISER Moriguchi Prize, World Bank Blog Post, VoxDev Article]

Developing countries have increased sanitation investment to improve child health. However, scaling up latrine construction can cause water pollution externalities owing to insufficient infrastructure for the treatment of fecal sludge, offsetting the direct health benefits. I estimate the negative externalities of an Indian sanitation policy that subsidized the construction of over 100 million latrines. Exploiting the geographical variation in soil characteristics that affect the feasibility of latrine construction, I find that this policy increases river pollution by 72%. Although the policy reduces diarrheal child mortality overall, this positive health effect is eliminated when upstream areas lack adequate wastewater infrastructure.

2. The Impact of Municipal Mergers on Pollution Control: Evidence from River Pollution in Japan (with Michiyoshi Toya)

Municipal mergers, aimed at improving local public services, can not only improve environmental quality by internalizing pollution spillovers, but also weaken pollution control due to coordination costs and political power imbalances. We examine the environmental effect of municipal mergers by exploiting the staggered implementation of Japan’s mergers, which reduced municipalities by half. We find that municipal mergers increase river pollution by 5.5%, persisting for 14 years. These effects are driven by equal-footing mergers with high coordination costs and incorporated municipalities with little political power. We find no evidence supporting alternative mechanisms, including changes in pollution spillover patterns and land use.

3. Extreme Temperatures and Adaptive Health Investment: Evidence from Sanitation Behaviors in India

Extreme temperatures are known to negatively affect health in the short term, yet their persistent effects remain underexplored. This paper examines how extreme temperatures encourage adaptive investments in health technologies over time. Using data on temperature and latrine construction in rural India, I find that an additional cold or hot day cumulatively increases latrine investment by 1-10%. Heterogeneity analyses highlight the discomfort channel, where households construct latrines to avoid walking outside for open defecation under extreme temperatures. The health benefits from this increased latrine investment are comparable in magnitude to existing estimates of the negative impacts of extreme temperatures.

Publications

The Poverty Impacts of Labor Heat Stress in West Africa under a Warming Climate (with Wajiha Saeed, Iman Haqiqi, Qinqin Kong, Matthew Huber, Jonathan Buzan, Shun Chonabayashi, Thomas Hertel), Earth’s Future, 10, e2022EF002777, 2022

Works in Progress

  1. VIIRS and the Future of Night Lights Data in Economics (with Paul Brimble, Axel Ezimendi-Larrinaga, and Adam Storeygard)
  2. The Holy Dip: Religion, River Pollution, and Health Consequences in India (with Moogdho Mahzab and Sheetal Sekhri)
  3. Does Trade with Multinationals Induce Greener Production? Evidence from the Bangladesh Fashion Industry (with Kazi Iqbal, Moogdho Mahzab, and Haruka Takayama)
  4. Caste Segregation and Spatial Misallocation in Village India (with Michael Neubauer and Shunsuke Tsuda)
  5. Gendered and Distributional Impacts of Scaling Water Access: Evidence from Tap Water Policy in India (with Marc Jeuland and YuJung Lee)