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Monica Singhal
Monica Singhal is Associate Professor of Economics at University of California, Davis and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her primary research field is public finance, with a particular focus on taxation and redistribution, and public finance in developing economies. She received her Bachelors and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
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Price risk and poverty
A common feature of markets in many developing economies is a lack of integration. This leads to substantial variation in prices of basic commodities across space, and risk to households from local supply shocks.
Commodity Taxation in India
This project examine cross‐country comparisons on commodity taxation in Bihar for 1994‐2012. The findings of the project suggested that the VAT reforms went a long way to harmonizing rates across states, but some challenges remain. Goods which tended to remain under a partial or full sales tax regime (such as petrol) continue to exhibit large variation across states. Bringing these goods under a GST system may be particularly challenging. In addition, individual states may wish to retain particular tax preferences for certain products or industries.
Price risk and poverty
There is an ongoing policy debate in India on whether grain entitlements under PDS should be converted into cash transfers. This column shows that in the face of high price variability, in-kind transfers such as the PDS can be superior to cash transfers as they could significantly reduce the strength of the relationship between prices and caloric intake, hence, shielding households from price risk.