BRYCE MILLETT STEINBERG
[Link]
mmillett@[Link]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler DCUTLER@[Link] 617-496-5216
Placement Director: Oliver Hart OHART@[Link] 617-496-3461
Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet BPIQUET@[Link] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information
Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs 244 Chestnut Street
111 Thayer Street, box 1960 Cambridge, MA, 02139
Brown University Mobile: 413-205-6861
Providence, RI, 02912
Undergraduate Studies:
A.B., Brown University, Economics (with honors), 2009
Graduate Studies:
Harvard University, 2010-2015
Ph.D. in Business Economics
Thesis Title: “On the Demand for Human Capital in India”
References:
Professor Michael Kremer Professor Edward Glaeser
Littauer Center M-20 Littauer Center 315A
617-495-9145, MKREMER@[Link] 617-496-0575, EGLAESER@[Link]
Associate Professor Nava Ashraf
32L, Department of Economics, LSE
NASHRAF@[Link]
Current Appointment:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2015-present
Teaching and Research Fields:
Primary fields: Development Economics, Labor Economics
Secondary fields: Public Economics, Health Economics, Urban Economics
Teaching Experience:
Spring, 2013 EC 970, Harvard, “The Economics of Health and Education”
Fall, 2015 ECON 1315, Brown, “Health, Education, and Social Policy”
Research Experience and Other Employment:
2009-2010 Becker Center, University of Chicago, Research Professional
Professional Activities:
Referee for: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Economic Development and
Cultural Change, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of
Human Resources, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Urban Economics, Quarterly
Journal of Economics, World Bank Economic Review
Program Committee for: NEUDC, 2015
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:
2015-2016 Watson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Public Policy
2013-2015 Bradley Foundation Fellowship
Publications:
“Do IT Service Centers Promote School Enrollment? Evidence from India”, Journal of
Development Economics, 104: p. 123-135 (September, 2013). (with Emily Oster)
Job Market Papers:
“Drought of Opportunities: Contemporaneous and Long-Term Impacts of Rainfall Shocks on
Human Capital”, Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming (with Manisha Shah)
Higher wages are generally thought to increase human capital production, particularly in the developing
world. We introduce a simple model of human capital production in which investments and time
allocation differ by age. Using data on test scores and schooling from rural India, we show that higher
wages increase human capital investment in early life (in utero to age 2) but decrease human capital
from ages 5-16. Positive rainfall shocks increase wages by 2% and decrease math test scores by 2-5% of
a standard deviation, school attendance by 2 percentage points, and the probability that a child is
enrolled in school by 1 percentage point. These results are long-lasting; adults complete 0.2 fewer total
years of schooling for each year of exposure to a positive rainfall shock from ages 11-13. We show that
children are switching out of school enrollment into productive work when rainfall is higher. These
results suggest that the opportunity cost of schooling, even for fairly young children, is an important
factor in determining overall human capital investment.
“Workfare and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from India” (with Manisha Shah)
We examine the effect of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), one of the
largest workfare programs in the world, on human capital investment. Since NREGS increases labor
demand, it could increase the opportunity cost of schooling, lowering human capital investment even as
incomes increase. We exploit the staged rollout of the program across districts for causal identification.
Using a household survey of test scores and schooling outcomes for approximately 2.5 million rural
children in India, we show that each year of exposure to NREGS decreases school enrollment by 2
percentage points and math scores by 2% of a standard deviation amongst children ages 13-16. In
addition, we show that while the impacts of NREGS on human capital are similar for boys and girls,
adolescent boys are primarily substituting into market work when they leave school while adolescent
girls are substituting into unpaid domestic work. We find mixed results for younger children. We
conclude that anti-poverty programs which raise wages could have the unintended effect of lowering
human capital investment.
Other Working Papers:
“Water, Health, and Wealth” (with Nava Ashraf, Edward Glaeser, and Abraham Holland)
This paper estimates the impact of water supply disruptions on disease and economic activity in
Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. We link supply-related complaints to the Lusaka water
company, which are common, with data on disease in related clinics. We find that in months when
there are more, and more severe, breaks, the number of diarrhea-related cases increases. More
surprisingly, we also find a modest increase in respiratory diseases and pneumonia, perhaps because
of decreased hygiene, and a small, but statistically significant, increase in infant mortality. We also
link water supply complaints to economic transactions that occur through Zoona, the dominant
provider of phone-based banking in Lusaka, which is a primary financial tool for the poor. We find
that there are fewer Zoona transfers in weeks with more complaints, suggesting that water breaks
reduce economic activity. It is unclear whether this reduction in economic activity is driven by
illness, or increased time spent finding alternative sources of water.
Works in Progress:
“Brains, Brawn, and Investment in Schooling” (with Martin Rotemberg)
