Welcome !
I am a PhD Scholar in the Economics area at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. I completed a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ranchi and MSc (Hons.) Economics with B.E (Hons.) Manufacturing Engineering from BITS Pilani.
My primary research interest lies in Development Economics. For my thesis, I am investigating the role of Financial Inclusion policies in deepening account ownership among women and its downstream impact on household welfare. I am also working on investigating the role of Gram Panchayats in improving the management of covariate health shocks. Finally, I am working on a project where we use Applied Network Theory to understand the determinants of jati-based homophily using granular social network data for ~100,000 households in rural India.
I was a member of the team conducting the second round of the Financial Inclusion Survey which covered ~3700 households in rural Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.
CV
Available here
Education
PhD, Economics Area, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (Ongoing)
PGDM (equivalent to MBA), Indian Institute of Management Ranchi (2015)
MSc. (Hons.) Economics, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani (2013)
BE (Hons.) Manufacturing Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani (2013)
Research Interests
My research work revolves around the following themes:
Financial Inclusion
Financial Literacy
Decentralization, Local Governance and Health outcomes
Social Networks in villages
Intra-household inequalities in consumption
Research
Working Papers
Neighborhood composition and Jati-based homophily in social networks: Evidence from Rural India
[Working paper with Pritha Dev and Hari K. Nagarajan]
Drafts under preparation
The Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion in rural India: Do policies matter?
Shocks and Household Coping strategies: Can Women's Financial Inclusion help?
Financial Inclusion, Women’s Agency, and Household Welfare in Rural India
Selected Works in Progress
Does the age penalty for older women still persist? Examining the mitigating role of Financial Inclusion
The Feminization of Financial Inclusion: The role of Policies and the PMJDY
Spousal network overlaps and Women's empowerment: Evidence from Rural India
Decentralization and COVID management by local governments in India: Examining the role of Revenue Buoyancy
Conference Presentations & Workshops
Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society (AMES), 13-14 Jan 2024 at IIT Delhi on "Neighborhood composition and Jati Homophily: Evidence from Rural India"
Development Economics Summer School, Barcelona School of Economics, Jul 10-14, 2023
Seminar in Applied Microeconomics - Virtual Assembly and Discussion (SAMVAAD), Apr 13, 2023 on "Neighborhood composition and Jati Homophily in Rural India"
Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society (AMES), 10-12 Jan 2023 at IIT Bombay on "Financial Inclusion, Women’s Agency, and Household Welfare in Rural India"
International Conference on Network Science in Management, Dec 17-18 2022 at IIM Ahmedabad on "Jati Homophily in Rural India"
About me
Citizenship: India
Statistical programming: Stata, R, LaTeX
I like: Reading (mostly Non-fiction - History, Political), Quizzing, Following Football (Arsenal)
Languages spoken: English (Fluent), Hindi (Fluent), Bengali (Speak/Understand), Odia (Native)
Get in touch: phd20abhishekt@iima.ac.in (Student mail)