My research interests lie at the intersection of macroeconomics, development and political economics, and urban and regional economics. I am particularly interested in the long-run evolution of economic activity across space,  the role of institutions, and the unequal distribution of environmental burdens. Some of the larger questions I try to answer in my research are: Why is economic activity more concentrated in some places than in others? Do politics and international linkages influence the growth of cities? How does ethnic geography interact with regional development? To address these questions, I combine remotely-sensed data and administrative data, state-of-the-art machine learning and causal inference methods, geospatial analysis, and formal theory.

My work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Development Economics, and Journal of Urban Economics. It has been featured in media outlets, including Voxeu.org, VoxChina, the Washington Post, the New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Brookings, and the Center for Global Development.

Head over to my faculty page if you want to get in touch or click here to see my  CV(PDF).