Jonah M. Rexer - Research

Pubs

Estimating the Economic Value of Zoning Reform

With Santosh Anagol and Fernando Ferreira.

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (forthcoming)

VoxDev, NBER Working Paper

Corruption as a local advantage: Evidence from the indigenization of Nigerian oil

American Economic Review, 2025, 115 (3): 1019-57.

Ungated version, World Bank Development Impact, Penn Kleinman Center Insights, VoxDev, CEPR/PEDL Working Paper

The brides of Boko Haram: Economic shocks, marriage practices, and insurgency in Nigeria

The Economic Journal, 2022, 132 (645): 1927-1977.

Selected for special issue on the Economics of Conflict

Political partisanship influences behavioral responses to governors' recommendations for COVID-19 prevention in the United StatesWith Guy Grossman, Soojong Kim, and Harsha Thirumurthy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020, 117 (39): 24144-24153.Op-Ed in USA Today

WPs

Violence and black markets: Evidence from the Niger Delta conflict

With Even Hvinden. Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Development Economics

Presented at: Hebrew University (2022), PACDEV (2021), ESOC annual meeting (2021), Max Planck Institute (2021), DEVPEC (2020), BI Norwegian Business School (2019), Penn Development Research Initiative workshop (2019)

Penn Kleinman Center Policy Brief, CEPR/PEDL Working Paper

Pricing Conflict Risk: Evidence from Sovereign Bonds

With Ethan B. Kapstein, and Andrés Rivera. Revise and Resubmit at Journal of the European Economic Association

Presented at: Georgetown University (2024), NBER Summer Institute (2023), UT Dallas (2023), Royal Economic Society (2023), LatAm Peace Science Conference (2023), DebtCon Princeton (2023), ESOC Lab (2022), WEFIDEV (2022), CESifo Political Economy (2022)

ESOC Working Paper

Heat, informality, and misallocation: Firm adaptation in the short and long run

With Siddharth Sharma.

Presented at: Barcelona GSE Summer Forum (2025); NEUDC (2024), Stanford University Climate Change Adaptation Conference (2024)

Critical mining contributes to economic growth and forest loss in high-corruption settings

With Erik Katovich. Under Review

From Patriarchy to Policy: Norms, Votes, and Gender Equal Laws

With Maurizio Bussolo and Lynn Hu.

Presented at: ECINEQ (2025); Queen's Business School, Belfast (2025)

World Bank Policy Research Working Paper

Penalties and Premiums in Sovereign Credit Ratings

With Ethan B. Kapstein, Adityamohan Tantravahi, and Fangyuan Yi. Under Review

Presented at: Princeton Development Finance Workshop (2023)

The marriage penalty: social norms, specialization, and women's work

With Maurizio Bussolo and Margaret Triyana. Submitted

Presented at: ECINEQ (2025); World Bank Gender Research in South Asia Seminar (2024)

Economic Times; Yahoo; Telegraph India; World Bank Working Paper

Local and multinational comparative advantage in the global mining industry

With Erik Katovich and Utsoree Das. New draft soon!

Presented at: INFER Conference (2025); University of Geneva (2024)

STEG Working Paper; INFER Working Paper

Climate change adaptation: What does the evidence say?

With Siddharth Sharma.

Household and firm exposure to heat and floods in South Asia

With A. Patrick Behrer, Siddharth Sharma, and Margaret Triyana.

WIPs

The Urban Gender Premium in Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from South Asia (with Sam Asher, Aditi Bhowmick, Maurizio Bussolo, and Paul Novosad) Draft soon

Embankments: Climate beliefs, behaviors, and adaptation (with Ashley Pople, Siddharth Sharma, and Maggie Triyana) Data collection complete

Artificial intelligence and white collar jobs in India

Fuel subsidies with black-market leakage: Evidence from Nigeria

Policy writing

South Asia Development Update, Chapter 2: Artificial intelligence, real impact: Labor Market Implications of AI Adoption in South Asia. October 2025. The World Bank.

From Risk to Resilience: Helping People and Firms Adapt in South Asia (with eds. Megan Lang, Siddharth Sharma, and Maggie Triyana). Main author, Chapter 3: Prepared for the worst: Building household resilience. June 2025. The World Bank.

South Asia Development Update, Chapter 2: Empower to prosper: women working for growth. October 2024. The World Bank.

OECD Blog; World Bank blog

South Asia Development Update, Spotlight: Heat and floods in South Asia: Household and firm exposure. October 2024. The World Bank.

South Asia Development Update, Spotlight: Who bears the burden of climate adaptation and how? April 2024. The World Bank.

South Asia Development Update, Chapter 2: Recruiting firms for the energy transition, October 2023. The World Bank.

Myanmar Economic Bulletin, Trade and Transport: Subnational convergence in Myanmar, 2018. Myanmar Development Institute, Ministry of Finance and Planning.