Arigna Guha

I am a development economist studying how decisions and opportunities are linked within families. I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Economics at Binghamton University (SUNY), on the 2026–27 job market.

My research uses applied microeconomic methods and survey experiments to study how families make decisions and respond to constraints, norms and institutions surrounding them. I am advised by Drs. Sulagna Mookerjee and Ajinkya Keskar. Originally from Calcutta, I completed my undergraduate degree at The City University of Hong Kong, and have also studied at Maastricht University and HEC Montréal. I am open to research-oriented academic, postdoctoral, and policy positions.

Role of Beliefs and Information in Allocation of Marriage Resources across Daughters: Experimental Evidence from India

with Ajinkya Keskar and Sulagna Mookerjee

We study how parents allocate resources across daughters when one daughter's marriage changes the opportunities of another. Using a survey experiment with 516 parents in Uttar Pradesh, India, we study sequential marriage decisions across sisters. Parents believe that a high-quality elder match raises the younger sister's probability of obtaining a high-quality groom and substantially lowers the transfer required for such a match; parents of sons independently validate these beliefs. We find that parents become substantially more willing to direct resources towards the elder daughter when her match also improves the younger sister's prospects.