I am an economist studying how contracts and firm-to-firm relationships shape trade and development. My work uses a combination of field experiments, administrative data, and quantitative models.
I am currently an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies (2025–2027). I received my PhD in Economics from MIT in May 2025. I am an affiliate of ThReD.
Job Market Paper
Aggregate Consequences of Relationship Dynamics in Trade
with Pulak Ghosh
Most trade takes place in buyer–seller relationships that both expand gradually over time and use future surplus to sustain trade when formal enforcement is limited. We study how these relationship dynamics affect aggregate adjustment to trade shocks. Using rich firm-to-firm transactions data from India, we document that: (i) trade within a typical relationship doubles in value over its first two years, (ii) this gradual expansion is stable across the firm size, age, and product experience distributions, and (iii) relationships start meaningfully closer to maturity in states where contract enforcement is stronger. To study the aggregate consequences of these micro-level features, we develop a dynamic multi-state general-equilibrium model that embeds optimal relational contracts within a tractable Ricardian framework. Following a trade shock, adjustment is gradual because firms must build new supplier relationships, while changes in future surplus endogenously reshape the contracts supporting existing and new relationships. We estimate the model using the firm-to-firm data and use it to study the dynamics of the transition following a reduction in interstate trade costs calibrated to a major 2017 Indian economic integration reform, finding that the short-run change in trade is only around half of the long-run change.
Working Papers
Relational Frictions along the Supply Chain: Evidence from Senegalese Traders
with Deivy Houeix
We study search and trust frictions in international sourcing, and whether the growth of ``social commerce’’ in lower-income countries can alleviate them. We document that firms use social media as sourcing infrastructure in ways related to these frictions. Guided by a relational-contracting model, we run a field experiment with 1,862 Senegalese garment retailers, matching them to suppliers in Türkiye (search) and cross-randomizing information about types (adverse selection) and incentives (moral hazard). New matches expand access to varieties and quality, but only develop into relationships when trust frictions are alleviated. Structural estimates imply trust frictions are complements and substantially limit trade.
Quantifying the Sensitivity of Quantitative Trade Models
with Habib Chenguiti Ansari and Dave Donaldson
Modern quantitative trade models emphasize cross-country heterogeneity in productivity across goods as the source of trade and its benefits. In workhorse versions, this heterogeneity is assumed to follow specific functional forms, such as i.i.d. Frechet or Pareto. We provide a systematic exploration of how sensitive the gains from trade estimated from these models are to relaxing this assumption---first, with a new formula for sharp bounds on gains from trade across all possible distributions, and then with a numerical characterization for the case where distributions must be close to the workhorse form. Importantly, for each candidate distribution we ensure that its implied trade model is consistent with standard estimation methods such as the ability to match all bilateral trade data points and an exogeneity assumption. Our estimated bounds are wide, even for small departures from the canonical model: the maximal gain is about four times larger and the minimal gain is zero. Imposing high-level restrictions on the distributions considered---for example, maintaining Frechet or Pareto marginals while relaxing independence, or vice versa---does little to shrink these bounds.
Publications
Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services
with Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, and Scott S. Lee
American Economic Review, 2020, 110(5): 1355–1394
We embed a field experiment in a nationwide recruitment drive for a new health care position in Zambia to test whether career benefits attract talent at the expense of prosocial motivation. In line with common wisdom, offering career opportunities attracts less prosocial applicants. However, the trade-off exists only at low levels of talent; the marginal applicants in treatment are more talented and equally prosocial. These are hired, and perform better at every step of the causal chain: they provide more inputs, increase facility utilization, and improve health outcomes including a 25 percent decrease in child malnutrition.
Awarded the Arrow Award for the best paper published in health economics in English in 2020 by the International Health Economics Association.
Selected Work in Progress
Trade Credit and Digital Records: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire
with Deivy Houeix