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Welcome !                                                

 I am an Associate Professor at the Economics area in Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. 

My research interest lies at the intersection between Development Economics and Behavioral Economics. In general, I look at economic issues, particularly all the bad things that women and men do, through the lenses of psychology. Consistent with that, my PhD thesis was titled "Economics of Misbehavior". My current work explores the behavioral antecedents of free riding in volunteering and low promotability jobs, race and caste based discrimination, unethical behavior, among other things. Currently, I am also a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany. 

In case you are visiting Bangalore, or India for that matter, drop me a line. We will be happy to have you over for a talk.

Among some recent developments:
  1. Nabanita Datta Gupta, Marie Claire Villeval and I have the following paper forthcoming in Games and Economic Behavior. "Feedback Spillovers Across Tasks, Self-Confidence and Competitiveness". Here is a three line summary:
    • The paper shows that people often think if they are good in one field, they are also competent in another, unrelated field.  
    • Success in one domain boosts self confidence in the unrelated domain, but failure does not diminish self confidence.
    • Feedback on success in one field, not only increases self confidence but also competitiveness in the unrelated field.
  2. Joydeep Bhattacharya, Priyama Majumdar and I have a new research paper titled, "Exponential-growth prediction bias and compliance with safety measures in the times of COVID-19". Here is a three-line summary:
    • We conduct a unique, Amazon MTurk-based global experiment to show that exponential-growth prediction bias (EGPB) helps understand why the COVID-19 outbreak has exploded.
    • We find that individuals exhibit substantial EGPB, which predicts markedly reduced compliance with the WHO-recommended safety measures.
    • A simple behavioral nudge which shows prior data in terms of raw numbers, as opposed to a graph, causally reduces EGPB.
  3. Prerana Maheshwari and Priyama Majumdar work as RAs with me at IIM Bangalore. Prerana has accepted an offer for a PhD position at Purdue University. Priyama is joining University of Warwick for her PhD.