How do TIFs impact municipal tax bases?
In five Cook County villages where TIF districts cover most parcels, diverted property value pushes up the tax rates schools, parks, and towns must charge — by up to 46% in Phoenix.
Policy Research · Data Analysis · Economic Analysis
Turning data into evidence for public policy.
I'm a policy researcher and data analyst with an MPP from the University of Chicago Harris School. I evaluate programs, model public finance, and build analysis that decision-makers can act on — in the US and in emerging markets.
- Currently
- Data and Policy Analyst, Cook County Bureau of Economic Development
- Education
- MPP, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
- Methods
- Causal inference, program evaluation, econometrics, policy design
- Tools
- Python, R, Stata, SAS, SQL, D3.js
7 projects
Selected work
How a court definition can erase 96.5% of India's oldest mountains
Applying the Supreme Court's new legal test to satellite elevation data shows protected area shrinking from 267,009 km² to 9,224 km².
Global Protest Tracker
An interactive D3 explorer of major anti-government protests worldwide, 2017–2025.
Did Kenya's Feed-in-Tariff deliver green growth?
Kenya's 2008 renewable energy policy shifted its power mix toward renewables — but did not cut absolute emissions, widen rural electricity access, or speed growth.
Crop insurance in India's North East
The Northeast leads India in crop insurance uptake — but in some of its states, farmers pay 60–90% of premiums the national scheme promises to subsidize.
Universal access to agricultural credit in India
A legal, administrative, and fintech reform framework to bring affordable institutional credit to every Indian farmer — and to track whether it arrives.
Gondan Diaries: a travel journal app
Journal your travels with photos, location tags, and AI-generated reflection prompts.
In print
Publications
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2026
Democracy Narratives Alliance
A three-part research series by Busara and People Powered for the Democracy Narratives Alliance, on how stories about democracy shape whether people engage in it.
- Democracy Narratives: What Are They and How Do They Matter for Democratic Engagement and Behavior? Busara, February 2026 ↗
- From Narrative to Action: Fostering Democratic Engagement and Engaged Citizens Through Behavior Change Busara Groundwork 31, February 2026 ↗
- How to Talk About Democracy: What We Know (and Don't Know) Democracy Narratives Alliance, March 2026 ↗
- 2023 Expanding the Coverage and Accuracy of Parcel-Level Land Value Estimates PLOS ONE, September 2023 ↗
On air
Featured
Migration Flows and US Policy Tools, with Katie Tobin
A conversation with Katie Tobin, formerly of the National Security Council and UNHCR, on how conflict shapes migration to the US and the policy tools available to respond.
Listen on Spotify ↗
TAP Live: Internships in Africa
A panel of second-year MPP students at Harris on their summer internships across Africa and what they learned from the experience.
Listen on Spotify ↗
About
Hello, I'm Rushikesh.
I am a policy analyst focused on economic analysis and development, working where data, public finance, and international development meet. I hold an MPP from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy and currently work as a Data and Policy Analyst at the Cook County Bureau of Economic Development.
My work asks whether public programs deliver what they promise and who bears the costs. I have evaluated a school feeding program across four countries for the World Bank, measured how Tax Increment Financing reshapes Chicago's tax base, designed a behavioral intervention against child labor in Kenya, and modeled credit access for farmers in India. Along the way I have worked with UNDP on data governance, and with federal health data in economic consulting.
I work across the full analytical stack — Python, R, Stata, SAS, SQL, and D3.js — from causal inference and program evaluation to maps, dashboards, and interactive tools that make evidence usable for policymakers and the public.