I'm a consultant at the Development Research Group at the World Bank. My research interests lie in the intersection of Development, Spatial, and Labor Economics.
I received my PhD in Economics from Syracuse University last June 2023. I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University from 2023 to summer of 2024.
You can find my CV here.
Contact: rrafols@worldbank.org
Economic Consequences of Climate Change: Evidence from the Philippines [Updated]
Accepted, Journal of Development Economics
Gender Norms and Child Penalties [Ungated draft]
Labour Economics, 2025
Place-based Preferential Tax Policy and Industrial Development: Evidence from India’s Program on Industrially Backward Districts (with Rana Hasan and Yi Jiang)
Journal of Development Economics, 2021 | code
Urban Agglomeration Effects in India: Evidence from Town Level Data (with Rana Hasan and Yi Jiang)
Asian Development Review, 2017
A Capital Idea? The Welfare Effects of Relocating Indonesia’s Government to a New City (with Alex Rothenberg, Yao Wang, and Yi Jiang) [Draft]
Revise & Resubmit,The Economic Journal
Are Workers Moving to High Productivity Regions?
(with Ying Feng, Tatjana Kleineberg, Tommaso Porzio, Jordan Rosenthal-Kay)
The Cost of Reversing Green Industrial Policy: Stranded Investment and Local Employment
(with Ruixue Jia, Wei Xiang, Victoria Wenxin Xie)
Slums and Neighborhood Dynamics: Evidence from Manila (with Alex Rothenberg)
at Syracuse University
ECN 310: Cities in Developing Countries
Prof. Alexander Rothenberg
Undergraduate Course, Spring 2021
ECN 422: Introduction to Statistics and Econometrics
Prof. Jan Ondrich
Undergraduate Course, Fall 2020
ECN 302: Principles of Macroeconomics
Prof. Abdulaziz Shifa
Undergraduate Course, Spring 2019
ECN 304: Economics of Social Issues
Prof. Eugene Liu
Undergraduate Course, Fall 2020
ECN 302: Principles of Macroeconomics
Prof. Jan Ondrich
Undergraduate Course, Spring 2019
ECN 302: Principles of Macroeconomics
Prof. Derek Laing
Undergraduate Course, Fall 2018