UC San Diego

This dissertation comprises three essays on labor markets and economic development, unified by the theme of how geographic location – within cities, within countries, and across borders – shapes labor market outcomes.Chapter 1 investigates how caste-based marriage migration influences female labor force participation (FLFP) in India. Over 200 million Indian women have migrated for marriage, yet little is known about how these patterns affect their economic lives. Using confidential Census microdata, I show that migration is highly responsive to caste similarity but less so to wage differentials. Larger co-origin networks at the destination increase women’s probability of working, while wage-driven labor supply responses remain modest. I develop a spatial equilibrium model linking migration, post-marriage FLFP, and network formation. The model reveals that caste endogamy raises aggregate FLFP by coordinating women into destinations where networks enhance labor supply. Policy simulations suggest that strengthening women’s networks could substitute for this coordinating role.Chapter 2 examines how urban workers in developing cities adapt to extreme weather shocks, using high-frequency data from a location-based labor platform in Delhi. Daily earnings fall by 4% on extreme rainfall days, primarily due to reduced labor supply. Workers exhibit limited spatial adaptation and only partial income smoothing over time. Distributional effects are stark: income losses are three times larger in lower-income, peripheral neighborhoods. Infrastructure—especially drainage coverage and metro access—is strongly correlated with earnings resilience. These findings highlight how climate shocks interact with spatial inequality, constraining adaptive capacity and urban productivity.Chapter 3 studies the global economic value of cities and how it evolves with development. Using job histories of over 500 million workers across 191 countries, I implement a movers-based event-study design with individual and time-fixed effects. Moving to a higher-wage city yields large earnings gains: city effects explain 93% of cross-border and 45–73% of within-country wage changes. These effects correlate with city size, industrial diversity, and skill composition. In richer countries, stronger skill sorting reduces the role of place; in poorer countries, migration frictions continue to limit mobility. The findings point to large unrealized gains from migration in the developing world.