I am a professor of economics at the E. J. Ourso College of Business, LSU. My current research concentrates on topics such as long-term economic growth and productivity, regional economic growth, consumption and savings, and economic growth in India. Some selected publications and recent research are highlighted below. My research on foreign direct investment and economic growth has received more than 5000 citations, while my work on historical state capacity and economic growth was cited more than 1000 times. A complete collection of research papers, both published and ongoing, can be viewed at the research link above.
I also serve as a general co-editor of Economic Inquiry, the flagship journal of the Western Economic Association International which has published papers by more than 20 Nobel laureates, and have previously served as an associate editor for Economic Modelling, Indian Growth and Development Review, and the Southern Economic Journal.
I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in economic growth and macroeconomics and was the recipient of the 2022 E. J. Ourso College of Business Outstanding Teacher Award for Tenured Faculty.
Selected Research
Household Consumption and Savings over the Life-cycle (with Neha Bairoliya, Jingyi Fang and Fang Yang)
Was India's Demonetization Redistributive? Insights from Satellites and Surveys (with Justin Cook), September 2022, Journal of Macroeconomics.
Do Attitudes Toward Risk-Taking Affect Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Second-generation Americans (with Bulent Unel), December 2021, Journal of Economic Growth.
Shedding Light on Regional Growth and Convergence in India (with Sujana Kabiraj), World Development, September 2020
Persistence of Fortune: Accounting for Population Movements, There was No Post-Columbian Reversal (with Justin Cook and Louis Putterman), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 6 (3), 1-28, 2014,
Does foreign direct investment promote growth? Exploring the role of financial markets on linkages (with Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli- Ozcan, and Selin Sayek), Journal of Development Economics, 242-256, March 2010,
States and Markets: The Advantages of an Early Start with Valerie Bockstette and Louis Putterman), Journal of Economic Growth, 7(4), 347-370, December 2002.
Updates
Presented "Consumption Smoothing and Household Consumption and Savings over the Life-Cycle" at the Southern Economic Association Meetings, 11/23.
Chaired a panel titled "Macroeconomic Perspectives on the Indian Economy" at the Southern Economic Association Meetings, 11/23
My Ph.D. student, Jingya Sun has a new paper on structural vs quasi-experimental estimates of MPC's using data from India (09/23).
Presented Consumption Smoothing paper at Midwest Macroeconomic Meetings in SMU (11/22).
Demonetization paper published in Journal of Macroeconomics (09/22)
Seminar on Consumption Smoothing and Households Savings at IIM-Lucknow (07/22)
CMIE research webinar on Consumption Smoothing and Household Savings (05/22)
College Outstanding Tenured Professor Teaching Award (04/22)
Ideas4india entry on Consumption smoothing and household savings (04/22)