Prachi Jhamb

I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Development Economics at the University of Georgia. My overarching interest is in understanding how people in low- and middle- income countries adapt to climate and economic shocks (like changes in land policy). I study how these forces reshape livelihoods and health risks, and how policy can reduce their adverse impacts. 

In one strand of my work, I show that during droughts, rural households reallocate labor from farming to bushmeat extraction, to partially offset crop income losses. In contrast, floods do not trigger the same response, highlighting how different types of shocks demand different coping strategies. In another project, I examine how deforestation driven by large-scale land acquisitions affects disease dynamics, such as malaria incidence, in vulnerable populations. I’m also deeply interested in how we measure economic progress in data-scarce regions, and my first dissertation paper explores the potential and limits of nightlights satellite data as a proxy for subnational development indicators across sub-Saharan Africa.

My motivation to become a development economist began in India, during my master's research on urban flooding in low-income areas of Gurgaon, where poor infrastructure and planning exposed communities to disease and financial hardship year after year. I filed RTIs, met with state engineers, city planners, hydrologists, builders, and NGOs, and interviewed households navigating stagnant water, mosquito-borne illness, and institutional neglect. That experience taught me how structural inequality and policy failure shape who bears the costs of development, and why we need research that centers the realities of those left behind.

Before graduate school, I worked at the Reserve Bank of India and the Ministry of Commerce, where I used macroeconomic and trade data to support national policy decisions.

Contact Information:

 I'm happy to chat via Zoom. Please feel free to reach out to me at:- prachi.jhamb@uga.edu