RESEARCH
A fundamental challenge in social sciences is: How do we build accessible and cosmopolitan markets? Presence of trust or information, or salience of cosmopolitan social identities can help in building such markets. My PhD thesis studies when do such economies of strangers emerge. My recent research focuses on other market frictions- uncertainty about the commitment of new business partners, market failure in the timely detection of crony behavior, and the absence of bourgeois values that promote business and innovation.
Thesis: The Friends we Make: Networks, Culture and Institutions (Introduction (Ch 1))
1. Origins of Impersonal Markets in Commercial and Communication Revolutions of Europe. Stigler Center Working Paper (2018)
2. Emergence of modern impersonal exchange: Role of formalization in the rise of modern capitalism. SSRN Working Paper
3. Census and Salience of Caste- India's Imagined Communities. with Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales. PhD Thesis (Chapter 4)
Ideas and Development
4. Role of socialization in business - Lessons from Dalit Entrepreneurs. SSRN Working Paper. with Pankaj Anand.
Thesis: The Friends we Make: Networks, Culture and Institutions (Introduction (Ch 1))
1. Origins of Impersonal Markets in Commercial and Communication Revolutions of Europe. Stigler Center Working Paper (2018)
- Brief: The paper provides an explanation of the rise of Northwestern Europe, emphasising its location at the centre of the commercial and communication revolutions.
- Download: Paper
- Podcast: "This explains why modern markets developed where they did", Bloomberg. 15th Jan, 2018
- Media coverage: LSE Business Review (link, 12 Feb, 2018), Unherd (link, 19 Jan, 2018), Equitable Growth (link, 6 Jan, 2018), VoxEU (link, 4 Jan, 2018), ProMarket (link, 13 Nov, 2017; link, 21 Jul, 2017; link, 8 Mar, 2017), Naked Capitalism (link, 20 Aug, 2017), Evonomics (link, 21 Jul, 2017), Derecho Mercantil (link in Spanish, 18 Jul, 2017) and FinMag (link in Czech, 22 Mar, 2017)
- Interactive map of early modern Europe (link).
2. Emergence of modern impersonal exchange: Role of formalization in the rise of modern capitalism. SSRN Working Paper
- Brief: I develop an evolutionary framework to study when firms formalize and voluntarily establish internal “order and discipline” in their conduct, in a traditional relational economy, to conduct impersonal market-based exchange.
- Download: Paper
- Media coverage: ProMarket (link), Derecho Mercantil (link in Spanish)
- Click for an interactive graph of simulated graph of trust (link)
3. Census and Salience of Caste- India's Imagined Communities. with Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales. PhD Thesis (Chapter 4)
- Brief: The paper provides an explanation of why caste identity is more salient and quality of government poorer in some parts of India, emphasising the role colonial censuses played in making the identity more salient by ranking and categorising different Jatis. I also develop a model (link) about the intergenerational transfer of social identity.
Ideas and Development
4. Role of socialization in business - Lessons from Dalit Entrepreneurs. SSRN Working Paper. with Pankaj Anand.
- Brief: The paper investigates the factors that exclude marginalized groups like Dalits from doing business. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we argue that opportunities for socialization are important for Dalit entrepreneurs to succeed in business.
- Download: Paper, Presentation
- Brief: The paper explores the factors that give rise to a competitive market for ideas, by looking at the earliest decades of printing in Europe for answers.
- Brief: The paper models how partnership uncertainty influences level of investment, and the conditions under which a gentleman's agreement can be a credible commitment device.
- Brief: The paper investigates the business models that can support taking the risky bets needed in investigative journalism, and the impact the presence or absence of such business models has on the political economy.
- Download: Presentation, Working paper
- Read report on "Protecting Journalism in the Age of Digital Platforms" by Stigler Center Media Subcommittee for the Study of Digital Platforms
- Download: Case
- Brief: The case develops a synthetic twin of Rwanda, to study its pattern of growth, and investigates the causes behind its astonishing turnaround since the 1994 genocide.
