Abstract: “Shweta Bhogale studies whether administrations exacerbate the 'Tragedy of the Commons' for groundwater and impede adaptation to scarcity by influencing the decisions of individuals and nested governments. She uses a difference-in-differences framework that relies on the overlap of groundwater resources with districts, and the permeability of aquifers which facilitates spillovers across borders. She finds that policy spending in districts that compete more for groundwater escalates the dependence on groundwater irrigation, aggravating negative externalities. In the long term, competitively shared groundwater resources experience depletion and defunct wells. Lastly, she shows evidence for district competition inhibiting public investments to ameliorate groundwater scarcity within villages.”
Bio: Shweta Bhogale is a postdoctoral fellow at Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s King Climate Action Initiative at MIT and a visiting scholar at UCSD's Global Policy School. Her research lies at the intersection of environmental and resource economics, development economics, and political economy. In particular, her research is structured around three key themes: (1) collective action and community cooperation for managing shared resources, (2) the adoption of sustainable technologies to enhance agricultural returns, and (3) the pivotal role of information in motivating behavioral and policy changes. Before starting her postdoc, she got her Ph.D. in Public Policy (Economics Track) at Harvard University. She received her M.A. in International and Development Economics at Yale University and has a B.A. in Economics and Statistics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.