I am interested in how institutions can be structured to achieve better outcomes for agents (decision-makers) and/or planners. I believe that the design of institutions and the incentives embedded within them are crucial in shaping individual behaviour and influencing the way they understand, formulate and solve the underlying economic problems. By focusing solely on individual behaviour without considering the institutional framework, we overlook how individuals perceive and address economic issues. Additionally, this can result in missing aspects that are critical to understanding the broader dynamics at play.
Strategy-proof interval-social choice correspondences over extended single-peaked domains (with Mihir Bhattacharya)- the International Journal of Game Theory (journal link, last draft)
Abstract- We consider a social choice model where voters have single-peaked preferences over a finite and ordered set of alternatives that are aggregated to produce contiguous sets or intervals of a fixed cardinality. This is applicable in situations where the alternatives can be arranged in a line (e.g. plots of land) and a contiguous subset of these is required (e.g. a hospital or a school). We define interval-social choice correspondences (I-SCCs) on profiles of single-peaked preferences which select intervals. We extend single-peaked preferences to intervals using responsiveness. We show that generalized median-interval (GMI) rules are the only strategy-proof, anonymous and interval efficient I-SCCs. These rules are interval versions of generalized median voter rules which consist of the median, min and max rules. We show that responsiveness over intervals is necessary for the strategy-proofness of the GMI rule if preferences over alternatives are single-peaked.
Fair allocation with semi-single-peaked preferences over location and quantity (with Mihir Bhattacharya) (working draft)
Abstract- We consider the problem of allocating a perfectly divisible heterogeneous good (e.g. land or advertisement slots) where agents have a preference for location and quantity. We introduce a new preference domain in which preferences are single-peaked in quantity, i.e., semi-single-peaked which can be represented by continuous indifference curves (ICs). We first provide results for two agents. We prove the existence of envy-free allocations using a fixed point argument. We show that an allocation rule is envy-free and Pareto efficient allocations if and only if it is the one produced by the Balanced-Curve Allocation (BCA) rule. We show that there is no strategy-proof, envy-free and Pareto efficient allocation rule. We provide some insights to obtain an envy-free and Pareto efficient allocation for any n number of agents when preferences are q-constant and monotonic.
Choosing a pair of complementary goods (with Varun Bansal)
Abstract- We consider a decision maker (DM) who has to choose a pair of `complementary' goods, one from each of two sets, A and B. We propose a heuristic in which the DM chooses as if for each alternative in A she has a (complementarity) order over alternatives of B and vice-versa. The choices made by the DM are represented by joint choice functions. The proposed heuristic encapsulates a minimal notion of complementarity. We call a joint choice function satisfying this heuristic a weak-complements choice function (weak-CCF). We characterize the family of weak-CCFs using three testable axioms. Further, we look at a stronger notion of complementarity, represented by a sub-class of weak-CCFs called strong-complements choice functions (strong-CCFs). A strong-CCF may not exist in the universal domain of (complementarity) orders. We show that the `single-crossing' property on the (complementarity) orders is sufficient for the existence of strong-CCFs.
Getting better: Redesigning Normal form games to achieve better outcomes (with Varun Bansal)
Matching using choice data (with Mihir Bhattacharya)
Achieving fair tournament designs
Computational work and pedagogical tools (link)
Fair allocation with (semi-single-peaked) preferences over location and quantity
Asian School in Economic Theory, Abu Dhabi (06-10 January, 2025)
Conference on mechanism and institution design, Corvinus University (08-12 July 2024)
Social Influence within clusters and stochastic Choices
DSE Winter School (15-18 Dec 2021)
The intertwining strands in Physics and Maths: Fourier Analysis for undergraduate Physics and Mathematics teachers, IISER Pune (Jan 2018)
XVII Annual GPSC Conference – Co-creating a Safer School Environment (February 2019)