Research on information, mass media, social networks, and economic development.
Working Papers
Building Friendships and Social Capital: Evidence from a Low-Cost Peer-Interaction Program , 2026
Can facilitated interaction create friendships and social capital? We randomize 166 young married women in peri-urban Gujarat to invitations for six facilitated peer meetings or control. Invited women report 0.8 more friends at program completion—more than doubling the control mean—with no increase in acquaintances. Eighteen months later, they are 22 percentage points more likely to coordinate on their cluster’s plurality choice in an incentivized game. Friendship gains spread through pre-existing ties, not geographic proximity; demanding coordination remains concentrated among invitees. Low-cost facilitated interaction can create friendships and functional social capital, while direct participation may be necessary to mobilize relationships for coordinated action.
Cable TV and Women’s Social Empowerment: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Rural India, 2026
Using the expansion of cable television between two waves of the India Human Development Survey, I study changes in gender norms, household status, mobility, and women’s participation in village groups.
Published Articles
Persuading Voters to Punish Corrupt Vote-Buying Candidates: Experimental Evidence from a Large-Scale Radio Campaign in India
Journal of Development Economics, 160 (2023).
During the 2014 Indian general elections, we carried out a large-scale experiment randomizing a radio campaign highlighting the disadvantages of voting for corrupt vote-buying candidates. Official electoral data show that the radio campaign significantly decreased the vote share of parties that engaged in the most vote buying (as reported by journalists). Voter survey data show that the campaign increased the salience of corruption as an election issue and decreased voting for parties that offered gifts. From a policy perspective, we show that radio campaigns are a cost-effective method to influence voter behavior. From a measurement perspective, we show that journalist interviews can impartially identify vote-buying parties.
Replication data · VoxDev article
Radio and Technology Adoption During India’s Green Revolution: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
World Development, 161 (2023).
Can mass communication spur agricultural technology adoption when social learning is limited? I use the staggered expansion of India’s regional radio network and district-level administrative data from 1966–1978 to estimate the effects of farm programming during the Green Revolution. Radio produced a large, persistent increase in adoption of high-yielding rice varieties, a spatially heterogeneous technology less suited to social learning, but at most a transient increase for more spatially homogeneous wheat varieties. Broadcasts also raised rice yields by 15 percent. The results show that mass communication can diffuse profitable innovations and increase productivity where farmers face barriers to learning from one another.
Selected Works in Progress
The Labor Market and Innovation Impact of Elite Technical Education
I study the private and social returns to admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology.
Supporting Grassroots Reporters: Impacts on Journalistic Content
We study whether structured support improves the quantity and quality of local reporting.
Mass Media and Nation Building: Evidence from India
We study how radio and language policy shape identity, social cohesion, and electoral change.