My research lies at the intersection of political and institutional economics, while also reflecting a broader interest in authoritarian politics and history. More specifically, I study how economic and political decision-making interact, with particular attention to the strategic behavior of politicians as they pursue electoral and political goals.
Methodologically, I mainly use formal modelling, though more recently I have also developed a strong interest in empirical research, especially in building original datasets from the ground up. For more information, you can find my CV here. If you work on related questions or share similar interests, I would be very happy to hear from you.
A common expectation is that weak incumbents are the ones most willing to rely on patronage, trading state resources for the support of elites, since that support can help them survive electoral competition. We show that this intuition changes once patronage is durable, developing an infinite-horizon model of electoral competition in which an incumbent can adopt such an exchange with elites once and for all. Because the channel attaches to office rather than to its creator, it can later benefit a rival who wins office after turnover. This creates a tradeoff: patronage raises the chance of staying in office today but builds an asset that may strengthen an opponent tomorrow. We characterize an adoption threshold and show that strong incumbents are more willing to adopt than weak ones, expecting a longer tenure in which to use the channel and a smaller risk of handing it to a rival. Larger elite contributions naturally widen adoption. Two secondary forces work through the same logic as strength. Electoral stability generally favors adoption, though its effect becomes single-peaked for a sufficiently weak and patient incumbent. The effect of patience is single-peaked unless the incumbent is sufficiently strong, in which case adoption rises throughout.
Incumbents with the capacity to repress often stop well short of using it fully. We address this puzzle with a dynamic model of opposition behavior in regimes where contested elections coexist with systematic advantages for those in power. Opposition factions choose whether to become politically active under repression and, once active, whether to cooperate with the other active factions or pursue independent paths. Repression deters participation and shrinks the active opposition, but among the factions that remain it strengthens the incentive to cooperate, since victory ends repression and a smaller field makes a united front easier to sustain. At low and high levels of repression, entry incentives govern the size of the opposition and additional repression works as intended. At intermediate levels, the capacity to sustain cooperation governs it and additional repression enlarges the united front. When unity poses a sufficient threat and factions are sufficiently patient, the probability of staying in power is non-monotone in repression, and repressing as much as possible can be strictly suboptimal.
This paper examines Political Budget Cycles in federal systems, focusing on how a central incumbent allocates discretionary transfers across states in response to electoral incentives. We develop a theoretical model predicting that average discretionary transfers increase during federal election periods. While swing states consistently receive higher transfers due to their electoral competitiveness, the election-period increase is larger for non-swing states. This occurs because non-swing states are targeted primarily during federal elections: allocating transfers to them in state elections is not advantageous for the federal incumbent, as it has little effect on the probability of winning those state elections. To test these predictions, we compile a panel dataset of Indian states from 2006 to 2022. Using fixed effects specifications, we find evidence consistent with the theoretical model: discretionary transfers are significantly higher in federal election periods, swing states receive more discretionary transfers in non-election periods, and the election-period increase in discretionary transfers is more pronounced for non-swing states.