Shiladitya Kumar

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Houston. I am a recipient of the Virginia Gray Graduate Student Research Award (from the PoP section of the American Political Science Organization) and the Jylee Nogee Scholarship (from the University of Houston). My research interests lie in Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Political Behavior and Political Methodology. I hold a BSc (Honours) and MA in Economics from the University of Calcutta and Jadavpur University respectively. Later, I graduated with an MPhil in Development Studies and Economics from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Developmental Research. 

My PhD dissertation concerns how the personal wealth of candidates interacts within an electoral system to produce political outcomes with meaningful second-order implications. My other research projects include those studying the cause of affective polarization in the United States (US), how networks are formed amongst donors and recipients as a consequence of an education policy in Texas charter schools, and how voters use reputation as an instrument of accountability in selecting candidates under repeated elections.