Vikram Pathania

Research Overview

My research focuses on causal inference, consumer behavior, health and regulatory policy, and the design and pricing of products and marketplaces. I have published in leading journals including the Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Health Economics, and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. My work has received over 7,200 citations on Google Scholar and has been covered widely by major media outlets such as The Economist, New York Times, Reuters, BBC, and WSJ.

Selected Publications

The Impact of Amazon Facilities on Local Economies (with Serguei Netessine)

Journal of Policy Analysis & Management (2025). Provides causal evidence on the effects of large-scale logistics investments on employment, income, and local economic activity using county-level variation and a difference-in-differences design.

Measuring Bias in Consumer Lending (with Liberman, Paravisini & Dobbie)

Review of Economic Studies (2021). A widely cited paper on how institutional frictions, screening heuristics, and lender behavior shape disparities in credit access, with implications for regulation and algorithmic decision-making.

Driving Under the (Cellular) Influence (with Saurabh Bhargava)

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2013). Uses natural experiments and granular traffic data to quantify the safety risks of mobile phone use while driving; widely cited in discussions of behavioral regulation and transportation policy.

Talks & Panels

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