Neil Thakral

Nancy Donohue and Diane Elam Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs and Economics
111 Thayer Street, Room 262
Areas of Expertise Inequality & Poverty, Labor, Tax Policy
Areas of Interest Behavioral economics, Housing policy, Labor markets

Biography

Neil Thakral joined Brown University after receiving a Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Harvard University Department of Economics and Harvard Business School in 2018 and an A.B. in Mathematics-Economics from Brown University in 2013. He is an Associate Editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics.

Research

Thakral's research focuses on behavioral economics and applied microeconomics. He has investigated topics such as the spending response to stimulus payments, preferences for public policies, preferences for workplace amenities, the design of public housing policies, and poverty.

Publications

Thakral, Neil, and Linh T. Tô. 2021. "Daily Labor Supply and Adaptive Reference Points." American Economic Review, 111 (8): 2417-43.

"The Design of Public-Housing Policies," More Equal by Design: Economic Design Responses to Inequality, eds. Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Teytelboym, Oxford University Press.

Thakral, Neil. 2019. "Matching with Stochastic Arrival." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 209-12.

Teaching

MPA 2040 - Statistics for Program Evaluation

ECON 1629 - Applied Research Methods for Economists

ECON 1825 - Behavioral Economics and Public Policy

Recent News

News from Watson

Anticipation and Consumption

In "Anticipation and Consumption," Neil Thakral analyzes how the timing of information affects consumption decisions using data from the 2008 stimulus payments in the U.S. and data from randomized experiments in Kenya and Malawi.
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