Publications

Agarwal, S., Wang, L., & Yang, Y. (2026). Online consumption and sustained air pollution exposure: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 121 (104267). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2026.104267

This study examines how air pollution affects household consumption in the digital economy. Using a proprietary dataset constructed from more than 500 million online transactions across 291 Chinese cities from 2017 to 2019, we study how online spending changes when pollution rises. To identify causal effects, we exploit quasi-exogenous variation in air quality generated by China’s winter heating policy and implement a difference-in-differences design comparing northern and southern cities around the heating period. We find that pollution increases online spending on health-related products and necessities and reduces spending on non-essential goods. The response is concentrated in the heating period itself, with little evidence of stockpiling before or delayed adjustment afterward. Item-level evidence shows that the increase in spending operates mainly through higher quantities purchased rather than higher payment per item. Additional evidence from Baidu search activity suggests that the spending response is associated with greater attention to pollution risks and protective products, as well as worse mood.

Lin Xu, Y., Meili, N., Chen, M., Ren, J., Mahto, S. S., & Galelli, S., et al. (2026). Singapore water budget: The past, the present, and the future. Water Resources Research, 62, e2025WR041411. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR041411

Urbanization and climate change profoundly impact hydrological processes and the associated water budget, challenging sustainable water management. In this study, we use a distributed mechanistic ecohydrological model adapted for urban environments to quantify changes in the hydrological budget components in response to urbanization, as well as projected future climate conditions and additional land cover changes. The city of Singapore is selected as the study site, given the high complexity of its water management system that integrates elements highly relevant to similar tropical urban settings, where the presented framework can be applicable. Results reveal that, compared to a pristine landscape in Singapore, urbanization has increased sensible heat flux by ∼5% and decreased latent heat flux by ∼11%. This is accompanied by a ∼32% reduction in total transpiration and a ∼16% increase in runoff. Climate change scenarios with higher temperature and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels show minimal impact on total evapotranspiration; therefore, runoff is very much dependent on the potential changes in future precipitation. Notably, the response of vegetation is shown to be relevant for long-term urban hydrology, with higher CO2 concentrations projected in the future significantly reducing the simulated stomatal conductance, which results in decreased transpiration rates broadly compensated by increased evaporation. By quantifying how urbanization and climate change can jointly impact hydrological budget components, this study demonstrates the significance of urban ecohydrology for a proper assessment of water resources, which is highly relevant to Water Sensitive Urban Design, in Singapore as well other cities.

Jing, C., Xu, B. & Zuo, L. (2026). Do financial disclosures affect corporate sustainability practices? Journal of Accounting & Economics, 101901, ISSN 0165-4101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2026.101901

We examine whether financial disclosures affect firm sustainability practices. Using mandatory segment reporting in the United States as the setting, we find that disclosing financial information about previously hidden segments in polluting industries reduces toxic emissions from firm plants. This effect is consistent with the notion that segment disclosures enhance monitoring of firm pollution by highlighting the financial materiality of polluting segments and drawing stakeholders’ attention to their environmental impact. The effect is stronger when the newly disclosed segments are more polluting. Disclosing firms achieve this reduction by implementing better pollution prevention practices, reducing waste generation, and increasing green innovation. Overall, our study highlights the role of mandatory financial disclosures in shaping corporate practices beyond the scope of the disclosed information.

Agarwal, S., Chua, Y. H., Ghosh, P., Ghosh, S. K., & She, L. (2025). Mortgages, subways and automobiles. Journal of Public Economics, 252, Article 105522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105522

We examine how sustainable infrastructure investments affect household financial outcomes by studying the impact of subway expansions on mortgage repayment behavior in Delhi, India. Using administrative data from one of India’s largest mortgage lenders, we find that households in postal codes with newly opened stations experience a 4.42% decline in mortgage delinquency rate and a 1.38% increase in prepayment rate. Evidence from vehicle registration records suggests that these improvements are driven by reduced automobile reliance, with vehicle spending falling by 6.52%. The effects are most pronounced among financially constrained households, who cut back on low-quality vehicle purchases and exhibit the greatest gains in repayment performance.

Agarwal, S., Choudhury, S. P., Fan, M., & Klapper, L. (2025).  The impact of Atlantic hurricanes on business activity (Policy Research Working Paper Series 11217). The World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4a51f770-b6bc-4426-a0a1-1b4d814b551c/content

This paper quantifies the short-run economic impact of 21 Atlantic hurricanes on U.S. local business activity from 2017 to 2024 using anonymized Mastercard transaction data aggregated by ZIP code. On average, hurricanes reduce merchant sales by 12.4 percent during the preparation, impact, and recovery phases—an estimated US$1.38 billion in lost revenue per storm. Substitution in spending across nearby areas or large online platforms is limited, indicating widespread local consumption declines. Economic disruption varies more by industry than storm intensity, with independent stores hit harder than chains. Local businesses with larger online presence face smaller, shorter sales declines, showing greater resilience.

Adbi, A., Agarwal, S., & Natarajan, S. (2025). Global heterogeneity in ETS rollouts and subsequent decarbonization outcomes. Energy Economics, 132, 108921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108921

This study explores how emissions trading schemes (ETSs) worldwide influence decarbonization. It finds that while ETSs can reduce carbon intensity, emissions, and boost renewable energy adoption, their effectiveness varies across countries. Key factors include reliance on natural resource rents, economic development level, and whether ETSs are nationwide or partial. The research shows that higher ETS carbon prices strengthen emissions reductions, underscoring both the potential and limits of ETSs in driving global climate action.

Agarwal S., Fan, M., & Qin, Y. (2025). Avoid urban development policy that fuels climate risk, Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02365-3

Urban development policies, designed to improve city resilience, could unintentionally increase the exposure to climate risk. This Comment discusses the impact of misaligned incentives, miscalculated benefits and costs, and overlooked behavioural responses on policy outcomes, as well as future directions.

Agarwal, S., Ghosh, P., & Zhang, J. (2025). Tax policy transmission and household expenditures.  The Review of Economics and Statistics 2025. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01584

Using a novel scanner data and difference-in-differences strategy, we assess how consumers respond to a large-scale tax reform in India that introduces exogenous variations in tax rate changes at the product level. We show evidence of a strong and persistent spending response to tax rate changes. The response is highly asymmetrical, with consumers responding significantly more strongly to tax rate increases than to decreases. We find empirical support for both intertemporal and cross-product substitution effects: Households (1) shift consumption forward preceding a tax increase and (2) substitute one good for another and alter their relative weight in the consumption basket to avoid paying higher tax. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that consumers with more personal shopping experience exhibit stronger consumption responses. Our findings have empirical implications for the efficacy of tax policy initiatives.

Ong, K., Mao, R., Satapathy, R., Filho, R. S., Cambria, E., Sulaeman, J., & Mengaldo, G. (2025). Explainable natural language processing for corporate sustainability analysis, Information Fusion, 115(102726). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2024.102726

This paper examines how the inherent complexity of sustainability leads to subjectivity in corporate sustainability assessments. It highlights that sustainability disclosures are often incomplete, ambiguous, unreliable, and highly sophisticated, making consistent evaluation challenging. Moreover, interpreting such disclosures is a resource-intensive process prone to human bias. The authors propose that Natural Language Processing (NLP) can automate parts of the sustainability analysis, improving efficiency and reducing some aspects of subjectivity. By further integrating linguistic analysis techniques with Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) capabilities, the study suggests a pathway to enhance transparency, interpretability, and reliability in sustainability assessments.

Adbi, A., Agarwal, S., & Ghosh, P. (2025). Urban noise pollution and learning in developing economies, Nature Cities 2, 6-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00189-4

Many cities in the developing world are witnessing high noise pollution due to infrastructure development and growing traffic. Urban planning interventions may be necessary to mitigate potential adverse effect of noise pollution on the learning outcomes of young residents in developing economies.

Santana, J. J., & Kim, S. (2025). From values to codes: A computational text analysis of the codification of occupational ethics. Organization Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406251317255

The institutionalization of occupations tends to assume homogenization of occupational values. This study addresses the question of how members of an occupation with dissenting preferences reach consensus on a code of ethics. We build on prior theorization of occupational institutionalization and institutional discourse to theorize ethical codification as a dynamic discursive process of internal dissent and consensus culminating in a professional code of ethics. We use email data from the IEEE-ACM Software Engineering Ethics and Professional Practice Committee tasked with producing the 1997 Software Engineering Code of Ethics to show how ethical codification follows a process of initial competition followed by semantic convergence. This study demonstrates how natural language processing and semantic network analysis can contribute to discourse analyses of institutional processes.

Agarwal, S., Qin, Y., Sing, T. F., & Zhan, C. (2025) Sea level rise risks, adaptation strategies, and real estate prices in Singapore. Journal of Public Economics, 241 (105290), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105290

This study exploits the Singapore Prime Minister’s announcement of the areas affected by sea level rise (SLR) within the country and its adaptation strategies valued at 100 billion Singapore dollars. Utilizing transaction-level data with exact locations, we find that public housing prices dropped by 7.2% in SLR areas four years after the announcement relative to non-SLR areas. In SLR areas with adaptation, the price depreciation was mitigated to 0.6%. In the private housing sector, freehold properties benefit more from adaptation strategies than leasehold properties. We calibrate the long-term discount rates before and after the shock at 2.27% and 2.14% in SLR areas and 2.35% and 2.12% in SLR areas with adaptation, respectively. (JEL H43, R21, R28, R38, R51, Q54)