.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
%201.svg){kind=icon}
%201.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg)
.svg)
Vis Taraz
Vis Taraz is an Assistant Professor of economics at Smith College. She received her B.S. from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University. She pursues a research agenda at the intersection of development and environmental economics. Her research centres on the themes of climate change, adaptation, agriculture and irrigation, with a regional focus on India. Her recent work analyses issues such as the ability of farmers in low-income countries to adapt to climate change, the spillover effects of agricultural climate damages on education and migration, and the implications of groundwater scarcity in developing countries.
.svg)
Groundwater depletion in India: Social losses from costly well deepening
There is widespread concern about groundwater over-extraction in India and, in turn, the long-term sustainability of irrigated agriculture. Since groundwater is a common pool resource, its overuse imposes costs or negative externalities on others. This article estimates social losses from groundwater over-extraction in arid Northwest India, and finds that the opportunity for farmers to repeatedly re-invest in deeper wells for irrigation significantly exacerbates the externality.
Temperature and human capital in India
A large proportion of the population in India has agrarian livelihoods that remain climate-exposed. The number of hot days per year in the country are expected to double by the end of this century. This column shows that higher-than-normal temperatures in a particular year lead to a contemporaneous reduction in agricultural incomes, and large negative impacts on children’s human capital outcomes in the subsequent year.