Rabail Chandio
PhD Candidate
Education
The Ohio State University
Ph.D. Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics
Expected 2023
The Ohio State University
M.Sc. Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics
2020
Lahore University of Management Sciences
BSc (Hons.) Economics and Mathematics
2018
Research Interests
Applied Econometrics, Agricultural Economics, Development and Environmental Economics, Machine Learning Engineering
Research Experience
Graduate Research Assistant, Farm Income Enhancement Program, Department of AEDE, The Ohio State University, August 2021-present
Graduate Research Assistant, GlobalWater Institute, College of Engineering, The Ohio State University, May-August 2021
Graduate Research Assistant, for Dr. Leah Bevis, Department of AEDE, The Ohio State University, May-August 2020
Job Market Paper
Chandio, R and Ani L. Katchova. “Sources of Bias in the USDA Baseline Projections.” Working Paper, Department of AEDE, The Ohio State University, 2022
Description: USDA’s annual Agricultural Baseline Projections contribute significantly to agricultural policy in the United States, and hence their accuracy is vital. The baseline projections present a neutral policy scenario assuming a specific macroeconomic situation and allow the analyses of alternative policies and their micro and macroeconomic impacts in the United States. We investigate the trends and heterogeneity in the incidence of bias in the USDA International Baseline Projection reports from 2002 to 2021. The evaluation of bias as it varies geographically, temporally, and by crop-variable allows us to make inferential judgments about the sources of this bias. First, we use the dynamic time warping algorithm to examine whether experts tend to group together the projections for certain crops across different countries, producing similar projection trends. We find that projection series for all countries in the sample are correlated with the United States in their trends. Second, we compute the bias in projections and decompose it by projection horizon. Third, we assess whether the bias is higher across crops or across countries with more substantial evidence for grouping behavior and find that for soybeans imports, soybeans ending stocks, and wheat area harvested, similarity in projection trends with the United States lowers the bias. At the same time, for most other crop-variables it increases it. This suggests that the projections for our sample countries are unnecessarily made to follow similar trends to the United States projections, which prove to be a bias-inducing choice in most cases. [link]
Other Working Papers
Chandio, R. ”Conservation and Conflicts in the Amazon.” Working Paper, Department of AEDE, The Ohio State University, 2022.
Description: This study evaluates how environmental policy restricting land use influences incentives for landowning farmers and landless peasants, and affects illegal occupations and land conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon. I use a ten-year panel data for conflicts, agriculture, and deforestation in the Legal Amazon region of Brazil and employ various matching methods to estimate the causal effect of an anti-deforestation policy on land conflicts and occupations. My estimates show the policy increases the number of illegal occupations in the Priority List municipalities by 25.9% while the number of land conflicts decreases by 21.5%. Analyzing the heterogeneity in the impact with respect to land values suggests that landowners and squatters both made strategic choices about whether to engage in conflict depending on the value of the land being contested. Landowners directed their efforts in capital and labor investments in their lands when the value of engaging in conflict to protect the occupied parcel of their lands was not more than the cost. But, for higher valued lands, landowners chose violent conflict to defend their plots. There are no spatial spillovers of the policy.
Chandio, R. and Leah E.M. Bevis. ”Winners and Losers in India’s Green Revolution.” Working Paper, Department of AEDE, The Ohio State University, 2022.
Description: The green revolution in India has been lauded for its positive impact on agricultural productivity and, in turn, the farmers’ lives. However, its effects on land redistribution and inequality, in the long run, are unclear. Large farmers may have benefited non-proportionately from the technologies that pervaded in the decades leading up to the turn of the 21st century. Richer farmers who own larger farms had early access to irrigation systems, allowing them to profit more. Simultaneously, the smaller farmers who are unable to set up new irrigation technologies and thus cannot compete with the large farmers may be forced to sell their farms, leading to systematic land redistribution. The poor farmers, in this process, may be worse off as a consequence of the green revolution in India. This raises the question whether the policy implementation considered farmer welfare at all. Identifying the winners and losers in the green revolution is important not only to understand the current inequality in India but also to design appropriate agrarian and welfare policies. Moreover, this research has policy relevance specifically for countries in Africa that are more recent to new agricultural technologies and may inadvertently experience worsened inequality and welfare loss by non-optimal policies.
Presentations
Chandio, R. and A.L. Katchova. “Sources of Bias in the USDA Baseline Projections.” Selected Paper, AAEA Annual Meeting, July 31- August 2, 2022.
Chandio, R. and L. Bevis. “Long term Impacts of the Green Revolution in India” Selected Paper, AAEA Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, 2022.
Chandio, R. “Conflicts and Conservation in the Amazon.” Selected Paper, AAEA Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, 2022.
Katchova, A.L, S. Bora, R. Chandio, and K. Ding. “The Accuracy and Informativeness of Agricultural Baselines.” Brown Bag Seminar, USDA-ERS, 6 July 2022.
“Herding in the USDA Baseline Projections.” NCCC-134 Conference on Applied Commodity Price Analysis, Forecasting and Market Risk Management, April 25-26, 2022.
“Winners and Losers in India’s Green Revolution” Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum, The Ohio State University, March 4, 2022.
Katchova, A.L, S. Bora, R. Chandio, K. Ding, X. Fang. “Evaluating the USDA Agricultural Baseline Projections.” Briefing to USDA-ERS MTED Administrators, 14 December 2021.
“Conflicts and Conservation in the Amazon.” Development Workshop, University of Georgia, October 22, 2021.
“Conflicts and Conservation in the Amazon.” Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum, The Ohio State University, April 9, 2021.
Teaching
The Ohio State University
AEDECON 3130 – Principles of Agribusiness Finance (Lead Instructor)
Expected Enrollment: 80 students. Responsibilities: taught lectures, developed course content, supervised TA, graded HW, and exams, and held office hours.
Topics include: financial statements, capital budgeting, and risk management
AEDECON 6130 -Applied Quantitative Methods III (Lab Instructor & Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Taught weekly lab sessions econometrics instruction with R), graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Student Evaluation of Instruction Score: 5/5
Fall 2022
Spring 2021
AEDECON 7120 – Advanced Quantitative Methods II (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Taught weekly lab sessions econometrics instruction with MATLAB), graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Student Evaluation of Instruction Score: 4.67/5
Fall 2020
AEDECON 7110 – Advanced Quantitative Methods I (Lab Instructor & Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Taught weekly lab sessions econometrics instruction with MATLAB), graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Student Evaluation of Instruction Score: 4.89/5
Fall 2020
AEDECON 4535 – International Economic Development (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Spring 2020
AEDECON 3102 – Principles of Agribusiness Marketing (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Spring 2020
AEDECON 3101 – Principles of Agribusiness Management (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Fall 2019
Lahore University of Management Sciences
ECON 232 – Introduction to Game Theory (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Fall 2018
MATH 101 – Calculus II (Teaching Assistant)
Responsibilities: Graded HW and exams, and held office hours.
Spring 2018
Extension/Outreach
Outreach Reports
Chandio, R., H. Wu, and A.L. Katchova. 2022. “Benchmarking Ohio Farms’ Financial Health” Report, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. Online.
Chandio, R. and A.L. Katchova. 2022. “Accuracy in USDA International Baseline Projections for the U.S. Compared to Other Global Leaders in Corn and Soybeans.” Report, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. Online.
Chandio, R. and A.L. Katchova. 2021. “USDA and OECD Baseline Projections.” Research report, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. Online.
Outreach Presentations
Katchova, A.L. and R. Chandio “Farm Financial Health and Benchmarks,” Ask the Expert, OSU Farm Science Review, 20-22 September 2022, London, OH.
Chandio, R. “Formalizing Farm Financial Documents for Better Farm Management” AAEA Extension Graduate Student Competition, AAEA Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, 2022.
Katchova, A.L. and S. Bora (R. Chandio contributor) “Are Our Farms Financially Secure?” Ask the Expert, OSU Farm Science Review, 21 September 2021, London, OH.
News Articles
“Farm Income Enhancement Program studies accuracy of agricultural baselines”, News Report, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics. March 31, 2022. [link].
Media Mentions
Farm Income Enhancement Program studies accuracy of agricultural baselines, Ohio’s Country Journal Online Edition, April 4, 2022. [link]
Honors and Awards
The Ohio State University
University Fellowship
2018-2019
Lahore University Management Sciences
Dean’s Honor List
2015-2018
Service/Leadership
President, Graduate Women in Economics, January 2022-present.
AEDE Liason, Graduate Women in Economics, May 2021-December 2021.
Skills and Proficiencies
Languages
English (fluent), Urdu (native), Saraiki (fluent)
Programming
Stata, R, MATLAB, Python, LATEX
References
Leah E.M. Bevis
Assistant Professor
Dept of Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics
The Ohio State University
bevis.16@osu.edu
Ani L. Katchova
Professor
Farm Income Enhancement Chair
Dept of Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics
The Ohio State University
katchova.1@osu.edu
Last Updated on April 25, 2022