Garima Sharma

I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Northwestern University. I received my PhD in Economics from MIT in 2023.

My research focuses on development and labor economics, exploring how labor markets function in developing countries, how market power shapes outcomes, and how social protection policies can improve the lives of the poor.

You can contact me at garima.sharma@northwestern.edu and find my CV here.

I am hiring a full-time pre-doctoral RA starting in July 2026. For details, see here.

Working Papers

Collusion Among Employers in India. March 2025.
Revise and Resubmit, American Economic Review.

Monopsony and Gender. April 2023.

The Effects of Mandated Maternity Leave on Labor Market Outcomes in India (with Pulak Ghosh, Stephanie Hao, Lisa Ho, and Shreya Tandon). September 2025. Email for draft

Abstract
This paper studies the effects of a 2017 Indian law that increased the duration of paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks on the labor market outcomes of women and men: wages, employment, and career trajectories. Leveraging pre-reform variation in the duration of leave offered across employers (driven by parent company policies), and linking social security records covering the universe of formal workers in India with all LinkedIn profiles, we document four main findings. First, the policy reduced female employment by 6% within six months of implementation and by 10% within four years. These effects were concentrated among young women aged 18 to 35, with no impact on men or older women, indicating that the average firm shrank in response to higher costs. Second, employers did not pass costs onto wages: women’s wages remained unchanged while men’s wages rose slightly, consistent with firms seeking to retain experienced male employees as women became more expensive to employ. Third, men were promoted over women: incumbent male workers were more likely to move into managerial and abstract roles requiring higher firm-specific human capital, while young women were more likely to be placed in manual or routine positions. Fourth, to rationalize the magnitude of the employment decline, employers would have to greatly overestimate the rate at which women take maternity leave, pointing to employer misperceptions. Our estimates indicate the mandate was benefit-cost neutral: it benefited employed women while raising costs for employers, with minimal impact on adverse selection at firms that already offered longer leaves before the reform.

Published and Accepted Articles

Collective Bargaining for Women: How Unions Can Create Female-Friendly Jobs (with Viola Corradini and Lorenzo Lagos). Online Appendix. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. August 2025.

Are Some Firms Better for Women’s Careers? (with Shreya Tandon, Lisa Ho, Pulak Ghosh, and Stephanie Hao). AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2025.

Long-Term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program (with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo). American Economic Review: Insights, Volume 3, No. 4, December 2021, Pages 471-486.

Depression and Loneliness Among the Elderly in Low and Middle-Income Countries (with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Erin Grela, Madeline McKelway, Frank Schilbach, and Girija Vaidyanathan). Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 3, No.2, Spring 2023.

Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Cash Transfers on Older Persons Living Alone in India: A Randomized Trial (with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Erin Grela, Madeline McKelway, Frank Schilbach, Miriam Sequeira, and Girija Vaidyanathan). Annals of Internal Medicine, April 2023.

Selected Work in Progress

Seventeen-Year Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program (with Abhijit Banerjee, Rebecca Cai, and Esther Duflo)

Understanding and Increasing Labor Market Formality in India (with Vaidehi Parameswaran)

Other Research

Female Labor Force Participation (with Rachel Heath, Arielle Bernhardt, Girija Borker, Anne Fitzpatrick, Anthony Keats, Madeline McKelway, Andreas Menzel, and Teresa Molina). VoxDevLit, February 2024