2025 Zayira Ray
Julius Silver Professor, Faculty of Arts and Science,
Professor of Economics, New York University
Research Associate, NBER
Part-Time Professor, University of Warwick
Research Fellow, CESifo
Spool Member, ThReD

Department of Economics, 
New York University,
19 West 4th Street
New York, NY 10012, U.S.A.
debraj.ray@nyu.edu, +1 (212)-998-8906.

Or use navbar and search icon at the top of this page to look for specific research areas and papers.
Oxford University Press, 2008. This book is now open-access; feel free to download a copy, and to buy the print version if you like the book.
≋ Three Randomly Selected Papers
⟳ Re-randomize

Measuring Upward Mobility

(with Garance Genicot), American Economic Review 113, 3044-89 (2023). [Slides]

Summary. We develop a measure of upward mobility that distills central features of the relative and absolute approaches to measuring mobility. The former is embodied in the Growth Progressivity axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. The absolute approach is embodied in the Growth Alignment axiom: mobility increases with higher growth for all individuals. These axioms, along with standard auxiliary restrictions, identify a simple one-parameter family of upward mobility measures, linear in individual growth rates and exhibiting geometrically declining weights on baseline incomes. A serendipitous implication of our measure is that it does not rely on panel data, which greatly expands our analytical scope to data-poor settings.

The Time Structure of Self-Enforcing Agreements

Econometrica 70, 547–582, 2002.

Summary. A principal and an agent enter into a sequence of agreements. The principal faces an interim participation constraint at each date, but can commit to the current agreement; in contrast, the agent has the opportunity to renege on the current agreement.  We show that every constrained efficient sequence must, after a finite number of dates, exhibit a continuation that maximizes the agent’s payoff over all such sequences. 

What’s New in Development Economics?

The American Economist 44, 3-16, 2000.

Summary. This essay is meant to describe the current frontiers of development economics, as I see them. I might as well throw my hands up at the beginning and say there are too many frontiers. In recent years, the subject has made excellent use of economic theory, econometric methods, sociology, anthropology, political science and demography and has burgeoned into one of the liveliest areas of research in all the social sciences.