Many congratulations to Gautam Nair on successfully defending his 2020 Yale dissertation on “The Politics of Inequality and Redistribution in Two Domains.” It’s especially interesting for those interested in the “politics of freebies,” politicians’ gifts of things like TVs, Computers, Bicycles and other goods to voters in India and elsewhere. Gautam shows how these transfers have a lot more to do with the political benefits that accrue to the parties and their leaders than to what voters actually want. It’s a great addition to the literature on clientelism and political economy.

Gautam begins as a tenure track Assistant Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School in July 2020.