Devolving property rights to local institutions has emerged as a compelling management strategy for natural resource management in developing countries. The use of property rights among fishing cooperatives operating in Mexico's Gulf of California provides a compelling setting for theoretical...

We examine the effect of rainfall shocks on dowry deaths using data from 583 Indian districts for 2002–2007. We find that a one standard deviation decline in annual rainfall from the local mean increases reported dowry deaths by 7.8%. Wet shocks have no apparent effect. We examine patterns of...

This paper evaluates the impact of access to groundwater on poverty using data from rural India. The estimation exploits the fact that the technology required to access groundwater changes exogenously due to constraints imposed by laws of physics at a depth of eight meters. I find that rural...

This paper evaluates the effects of a public groundwater provision program on water tables in Northern India. I theorize that public provision leads to sustainable use of groundwater when the fixed costs for private well provision are high. I use village-level longitudinal data on aquifers and...