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)
Abstract- We study the fair division of a heterogeneous good between two agents in a domain where contiguous bundles are defined by their starting location and quantity. We formulate a general class of monotonic spatial preferences using ordinal indifference curves. We prove that all Pareto efficient and Envy-free allocations must lie within a specific “balanced region,” implying that a strict equal split is only fair if it intersects this space. Crucially, we demonstrate that while Pareto efficient and Strategy-proof rules exist, no allocation rule can simultaneously satisfy Pareto efficiency, Envy-freeness, and Strategy-proofness.
Old Draft with semi-single peaked preferences (Link)
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.
Stable Matching with Choice Correspondences: Beyond Path Independence (with Varun Bansal and Mihir Bhattacharya)
Abstract- We study stable matching with agents' choice correspondences as primitives. For many-to-many markets we introduce Individually Rational Persistence (IRP), which admits status-quo persistence, and show that substitutability (SUB) and IRP guarantee a stable matching; the constructive proof yields a symmetric matching algorithm with no proposing side and long-term contracts. For one-to-one markets we introduce replacement-based stability and show that SUB together with binary acyclicity (BA) guarantees existence. Combining the two, in the many-to-one setting, where SUB and irrelevance of rejected contracts (IRC) guarantee stability, we show that SUB with IRP on firms and BA on workers guarantees existence. We show that, in the presence of SUB, IRC is not necessary for existence in any of the three models, so stable matchings exist outside the domain of path independence.
Strategy-Proof Set-Valued Choice on Single-Dipped Domains (with Arkarup Basu Mallik, Mihir Bhattacharya)
Abstract- We study strategy-proof social choice where agents have single-dipped preferences and outcomes may be sets of alternatives. While point-valued strategy-proof rules select an endpoint, we ask which outcomes survive when sets are compared through responsive extensions. Under the standard responsive extension, preferences over fixed-length intervals remain single-dipped, so the endpoint restriction persists and anonymity yields a single-threshold rule. Under responsive dominance, the incomplete order shared by all responsive extensions, an interior interval can survive because the two extreme intervals need not be comparable. For arbitrary sets, requiring every chosen alternative to be most preferred by some agent yields voting-by-committees rules, with one committee per endpoint; anonymous rules have a two-threshold quota form. The characterization holds on the entire endpoint-peaked domain, and every such rule is group-strategy-proof.
Verifiable Cheap Talk models
Getting better: Redesigning Normal form games to achieve better outcomes
Achieving fair tournament designs
Computational work and pedagogical tools (link)
Conferences, Workshops ...
Computational Microeconomics Workshop - IISER, Bhopal (19-20 Feb 2026) (invited)
ACM IndiCS School and Seminar on Algorithmic Mechanism Design (AMD), Coimbatore (08-12 December 2025)
Fair allocation with (semi-single-peaked) preferences over location and quantity
Asian School in Economic Theory, NYU Abu Dhabi (06-10 January, 2025)
Conference on Mechanism and Institution design, Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary (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)