Hi, I'm Raka.
I'm a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at Georgia State University, advised by Professor Lauren Hoehn-Velasco. My research sits at the intersection of health and labor economics. I use applied microeconometric methods and large administrative datasets to study how public policies affect health and economic outcomes.
My dissertation spans alcohol markets, obstetric practice, and tax policy. My job market paper, Alcohol Access Shocks and Mortality, draws on 67.5 million U.S. death records to show that local access to off-premise alcohol retail raises alcohol-attributable mortality. My work on neonatal mortality risk is published in the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health.
I am on the 2026–27 job market.
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Alcohol Access Shocks and Mortality
A substantial literature links the density of alcohol retail outlets to adverse health and social outcomes, but this evidence is often correlational and confined to a single city or region. In this paper, I provide causal evidence on whether physical alcohol retail access affects mortality. I develop a mortality-risk extension of the rational addiction model with access costs, and test its predictions against reduced-form estimates. I identify the effect from county-level, over-time variation in County Business Patterns liquor store establishment counts, matched to restricted-access NCHS Multiple Cause of Death mortality microdata, across U.S. counties from 1989 to 2016, and estimate two-way fixed effects and event-study specifications. Each additional liquor store per 100,000 residents raises alcohol-primary mortality by 0.048 deaths per 100,000 annually, a 0.65% increase relative to the pre-treatment mean. The effect is three times larger for off-premise retailers (e.g., liquor stores) than for on-premise establishments (e.g., bars), and concentrated among older adults, consistent with a chronic rather than acute consumption channel. Using a standard value of a statistical life, the estimated effect amounts to approximately $556,000 in annual mortality damages per additional store per 100,000 residents.
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Professional Recommendations and Provider Behavior
Provider responses to updated clinical guidelines play a central role in shaping health outcomes. In this study, we examine how physicians respond to new randomized controlled trial (RCT) evidence. We analyze physician behavioral changes following the publication of the ARRIVE trial in obstetrics, which found that elective induction at 39 weeks can reduce cesarean delivery in low-risk, first-time pregnancies. Using nationally representative U.S. birth certificate data from 2016 to 2021, we document a rapid and sustained increase in 39-week inductions for low-risk first births by approximately 9%. Following the trial's release, inductions not only increase among first births but also among subsequent births, suggesting “off-label” application of the trial findings. Despite this significant shift in clinical practice, we find no corresponding decline in cesarean sections for first births. These findings highlight a significant discrepancy between trial-based findings and real-world application: while providers respond to high-quality clinical evidence, the anticipated downstream benefits may not surface. Our results highlight the importance of evaluating how evidence translates into practice and challenge the assumption that RCT findings necessarily imply population-level improvements.
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The Long-term Impact of In-Utero Alcohol Taxes on Adult Prenatal Drinking
Prior research documents the effects of alcohol taxes on drinking and birth outcomes, but their long-term intergenerational effects remain largely unexplored. We investigate whether in-utero exposure to state alcohol taxes shapes adult prenatal drinking decades later. Using U.S. birth certificate data (1989–2004) on 11.7 million first births, we link each mother's state and year of birth to the alcohol tax her mother faced during pregnancy, and estimate models with state and year fixed effects and cohort trends; event studies show no pre-trends. A one-dollar increase in the real in-utero alcohol tax per gallon of ethanol lowers the probability of prenatal drinking by 0.07 percentage points (about 7 percent of the mean). The effect operates entirely on the extensive margin, is concentrated among older, more-educated mothers, and comes with suggestive improvements in infant health, highlighting the durability of early-life policy interventions.
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Advertising and Consumer Behavior in the Post-Dobbs Era
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Heat Waves, Fertility, and Labor Market Outcomes in the U.S.
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Does Time Bridge Gaps? Long-Term Dynamics of the Child Penalty in Women's Earnings
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The Long-term Impact of In-Utero Restrictions to Abortion Access on Adult Labor Market Outcomes
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State-Paid Leave and Healthcare Utilization for Infants
- Health Economics — maternal health, infant health, reproductive policy, healthcare utilization
- Labor Economics — labor market outcomes, child penalty, intergenerational mobility, fertility
- Public Policy — taxation, paid leave, alcohol policy, regulatory impacts
Instructor of Record
- ECON 2106: Principles of Microeconomics
Georgia State University, Spring 2025, Fall 2025
Teaching Assistant
- ECON 8030: Mathematical Methods for Economists (PhD)
Fall 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 - ECON 4230: Experimental Economics
Spring 2025, 2026 - ECON 3910: Microeconomics
2024, 2025
Contact
Email: dattarakaecon@gmail.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rakadatta
Office:
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA 30303
Short Bio
Raka Datta is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, advised by Professor Lauren Hoehn-Velasco. Her research applies causal inference tools on large administrative and panel data to study questions in health and labor economics using applied microeconometric methods. She focuses on alcohol policy, provider behavior, and maternal and child health outcomes.
Prior to her PhD, she received an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Bonn and worked as a Research Assistant at IZA - Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn, in the program Gender, Growth and Labor Markets in Low Income Countries.