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Mere Addition is equivalent to avoiding the Sadistic Conclusion in all plausible variable-population social orderings
Published in Economics Letters, 2020. With Dean Spears.
This paper shows that two ideas in population ethics—the intuition against adding miserable lives (the sadistic conclusion) and the appeal of adding happy ones (mere addition)—are logically equivalent. Under mild assumptions, you can’t accept one without accepting the other.
What can we learn about Swachh Bharat Mission from NFHS-5 factsheets?
Published in Ideas for India, 2021. With Diane Coffey and Dean Spears.
Policy paper: The Swachh Bharat Mission was introduced by Government of India in 2014 to eliminate open defecation. Based on data from the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS)-5 factsheets, this article shows that the sanitation situation has broadly remained the same between NFHS-4 in 2014 and NFHS-5 in 2019. Under fairly strong assumptions based on early data, half of the rural population in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan, continue to defecate in the open.
Dataset: Annual Health Survey (AHS), India, 2007–2012 (ICPSR 38097)
Published in Data Sharing for Demographic Research, 2022. With Diane Coffey, Samuel Arenberg, Minle Xu, and Sangita Vyas.
The Annual Health Survey, 2007–2012 is a longitudinal panel of over 4 million households in nine high-mortality Indian states, designed to track maternal and child health outcomes at the district level. I was part of a team that assembled, cleaned, and documented the raw government microdata, releasing user-friendly versions through ICPSR to support high-quality research.
Intergenerational transmission is not sufficient for positive long-term population growth
Published in Demography, 2022. With Samuel Arenberg, Kevin Kuruc, Sangita Vyas, Nicholas Lawson, Melissa LoPalo, Mark Budolfson, Michael Geruso, and Dean Spears.
Even when children closely mirror their parents’ fertility, population growth isn’t guaranteed. Using demographic models, the study shows that intergenerational transmission might not overcome low fertility’s long-run momentum toward decline.
The association between cesarean birth and breastfeeding initiation in Odisha, India: A mother fixed effects analysis
Published in PLOS One, 2024. With Smita and Diane Coffey.
The study analyzes longitudinal births in Odisha (2007–2011) using a mother fixed‑effects model to identify the impact of cesarean delivery on breastfeeding initiation. It finds that babies born via C-section are about 11 percentage points more likely to experience delayed breastfeeding (beyond 24 hours) compared to their vaginally born siblings.
Excess neonatal mortality among private facility births in rural parts of high-mortality states of India: Demographic analysis of a national survey
Published in Social Science and Medicine, 2025. With Diane Coffey, Nikhil Srivastav, Aditi Priya, Asmita Verma, Alok Kumar, and Dean Spears.
43,000 excess neonatal deaths occur among private-facility births to rural mothers in India’s EAG states. Public facilities serve lower-SES patients but private-facility births have higher mortality. The mortality gap is worse after standardizing for SES. All birth subsamples we use show a public-private mortality gap, even low-risk ones. This is evidence of low-quality natal care in the private facilities studied.
Job market paper: Cheaper and better? Explaining the newborn mortality advantage at public versus private hospitals in India.
In part of India, richer mothers pay more for riskier care in private facilities. This paper develops an econometric model of selection and uses a spatial RDD at district borders to show public facilities save lives with skin-to-skin care.
Uncertainty about maternal mortality in India: New, higher estimates from the National Family Health Survey-4
With Aashish Gupta, Dean Spears, and Diane Coffey.
Using NFHS-4 data, this paper estimates India’s 2012–16 maternal mortality at 228 deaths per 100,000 live births—far above official figures. If correct, the findings suggest India is not on track to meet SDG targets and that current systems may be undercounting maternal deaths.
Be careful what you ask for: Social desirability bias in self-reported data in India
With Sangita Vyas.
A large-scale sanitation program in India made open defecation more salient as a social issue. This paper documents how the relationship between children’s heights and open defecation weakened after the program, consistent with it worsening response bias. The estimate of the true prevalence of open defecation from our econometric model is much higher than survey estimates.