research
job market paper
Price Regulation and the Adoption–Innovation Trade-off (with Felipe Berrutti)
Recipient of the Susan Schmidt Bies Prize for Doctoral Student Research on Economics and Public Policy and the UniCredit Foundation's Econ JM Best Paper Award.
Supported by the Global Poverty Research Lab, an Exploratory Travel and Piloting Grant from the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics at the University of Chicago, a Conference Travel Grant from the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, and a Graduate Research Grant from the Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Supported by the Global Poverty Research Lab, an Exploratory Travel and Piloting Grant from the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics at the University of Chicago, a Conference Travel Grant from the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, and a Graduate Research Grant from the Graduate School at Northwestern University.
[Abstract] [PDF ] [Blogpost ] [Presentation ]
Regulating technology prices can spur adoption yet deter innovation. In India, price controls on genetically engineered (GE) cotton seeds induced this trade-off. Leveraging the policy's differential timing across states, we show that mandated price reductions accelerated adoption of GE seeds. Although seed supply kept pace, innovation stalled: agronomic yields of new varieties fell in price-controlled states. We quantify welfare through a structural model of demand and supply for seeds. The policy raised farmers' surplus, especially among the poor, but ignoring innovation responses overstates welfare gains. Tying innovation incentives to the productivity of new varieties achieves the highest welfare for farmers.
other working papers
Reshaping Agricultural Subsidies (with Paul Christian, Steven Glover, Florence Kondylis, John Loeser, and Astrid Zwager)
Recipient of the Early Career Scholars Grant from Policy Impacts.
Supported by the European Union and the World Bank Country Management Unit in Mozambique.
Supported by the European Union and the World Bank Country Management Unit in Mozambique.
[Abstract] [PDF ]
[ sharply decreasing · uniform · high & decreasing]
We study the optimal shape of agricultural input subsidies. We randomize subsidy increases to Mozambican farmers, relative to a reference group with a subsidy rate that is decreasing in input quantity. A sharply decreasing subsidy (higher for small quantities) increases payouts to poorer farmers. A uniform subsidy (higher for large quantities) increases production by 36% by increasing input use among marginally productive farmers, overcoming both informational and financial constraints. A high and decreasing subsidy (higher for both quantities) diverts these farmers from large to small input quantities. Planners with plausible preferences over productivity, transfers, and equity prefer a uniform subsidy.
The Origins of the Nitrogen Revolution (with Christopher W. A. Sims)
Honorable mention at the 15th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association.
Supported by the Center for Economic History and the EconLab at Northwestern University, an International Research Travel Grant from the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, and a Graduate Research Grant from the Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Supported by the Center for Economic History and the EconLab at Northwestern University, an International Research Travel Grant from the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, and a Graduate Research Grant from the Graduate School at Northwestern University.
[Abstract] [PDF ]
Many technologies raise productivity in locations constrained by their natural endowments yet diminish specialization across space. We show that the first commercial nitrogen fertilizers in history were one such "converging" technology. Leveraging natural variation in soil nitrogen deficiency and the sudden introduction of Peruvian guano and nitrates to 19th-century England, we provide two main empirical findings. First, locations specialized on the basis of their natural endowments before the introduction of fertilizer: nitrogen-deficient places devoted less land to nitrogen-intensive crops. Second, combining newly-digitized data and a difference-in-differences design, we show that these nitrogen-deficient places substantially reallocated toward nitrogen-intensive crops after fertilizer was introduced, indicating convergence across space. To quantify the welfare impact of this "converging" technology, we embed fertilizer into a quantitative spatial model of the English agricultural sector with realistic geography. The welfare gains from fertilizer were equivalent to two decades of annual productivity growth in agriculture. However, convergence implies a reduction in the gains from trade, which offsets up to 10% of these welfare gains under plausible trade cost regimes.
Through the Mill: Tax Technology and Compliance with a New State (with Caterina Alfonzo)
Recipient of 2026 EIEF Grant.
[Abstract] [PDF ]
Technologies can strengthen fiscal capacity but undermine compliance with other state demands. We study this trade-off through Italy's nineteenth-century milling tax, which mandated the introduction of mechanical counters to measure milled grain. Using newly digitized data, we establish that proximity to counters' distribution depots, not local economic conditions or deliberate state targeting, drove counter diffusion. Leveraging this spatial variation, we find that the technology raised tax compliance: provinces with wider diffusion collected higher tax revenues. Yet the same technology eroded civic compliance: in a difference-in-differences, counters increased evasion of military service, a response persisting beyond the tax's repeal. Evasion increased most where little state investment preceded the tax, consistent with negative reciprocity toward the state. We embed both responses in a model of tax administration. Counters were fiscally efficient, but their welfare cost rises with the social value the state places on military service and falls where state investment had come first.
publications
2025
2024
2022
2020
