Peer-Reviewed PublicationS
​"Property Righting: the Politics of Rights over Land and Labor,” (with Margaret Levi).
Annual Review of Political Science (2025).​​​​​
​
​Abstract. This essay focuses on property rights in land and labor, the ways in which they have been entangled since the development of early capitalism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the extent to which they have realized--or failed to realize--desiderata in addition to economic productivity and growth. The definition and enforcement of property rights may reflect the power relations within a society, but their realization depends on state laws and capacities. Transformations of property rights tend to follow changes in the balance of power among elites and in state capacity or as a response to effective resistance by those who are harmed or excluded.
WorkING PAPERS​​​
“The labor economic origins of state coercion: Evidence from South Asian indenture.” ​
​
Abstract. How does labor extraction strengthen the carceral state? Using the case of Indian indentured labor on Assamese tea plantations during British colonialism, this paper finds that early uses of police and jails protected capital interests over protecting against crime. Using administrative archival data, I demonstrate that as districts increased their dependence on indentured labor, incarceration rates rose in parallel. A 10% increase in the indenture rate corresponded with a 1.4% increase in incarceration rates, a meaningful increase given the relatively low rates of incarceration. Indenture, as an extractive labor system, engendered a political economy that required state coercion -- like policing and incarceration -- for its profitability. Further, historical crime records reveal that this effect is driven by threats to the plantation profitability in the form of laborers' desertions from their contracts. Desertions are overpoliced compared to other forms of violent crime. These findings complement the existing body of work which depicts a relationship between post-enslavement emancipation and policing in the Americas, further clarifying the role police play in protecting capitalist interests in emerging states.
​
“Policing the Plantation: the long-run influence of colonial capital extraction on coercion in the case of Assamese tea plantations.” ​
​
Abstract. Political scientists have long assumed a co-evolving relationship between coercion and capital in the statebuilding process, but little empirical evidence is leveraged to understand the nature of this connection. This paper studies the long-run coercive effects of indenture, a forced labor institution established on tea plantations by the British in northeast India. Specifically, I examine police institutions, police violence, and opinions of police forces among those implicated in the plantation system. Through both digitization and coding of archival records and fieldwork among affected descendants of forced laborers in the present, I provide new estimates into the coercive consequences of colonial labor regimes. This work contributes to a growing literature using causal inference in studies of historical processes and offers an empirical approach to mechanize and test theories regarding the relations between capital extraction and coercion, understanding the political, and not merely economic, effects of forced labor regimes established by the British empire.
​
​"Land, Labor, Leverage: The Dynamics of Bargaining for Development around Mining Investment,” (with Aliz Tóth). ​
​
Abstract. Can mining investments improve development? Contrary to conventional wisdom that extractive industries typically hinder development, we argue that mining can stimulate local-level development through bargaining between state, firms, and local communities. We collect information on all mining investments in India between 1995-2020 to test this theory. Using a difference-in-differences design, we demonstrate that mining investments can increase large-scale infrastructure investment but have limited effects on local public goods or individual-level welfare. We attribute this discrepancy to the uneven distribution of benefits, with promised investments often failing to benefit mining-affected communities. We provide evidence of our bargaining mechanism by demonstrating that mining investments spur conflict between state and society and that communities with better bargaining power achieve more positive development outcomes. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding state-society interactions to development outcomes in extractive contexts.
​​​
WORKS IN PROGRESS​
​“Paying Not to Kill: how monetary incentives shape police violence in Rio de Janeiro,” (with Beatriz Magaloni-Kerpel and Carlos Schmidt-Padilla).
​