Manhar Manchanda
Manhar Manchanda completed his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, under the supervision of Prof. Somdeep Chatterjee. His thesis, titled “Essays on the Political Economy of Development,” examines key questions at the intersection of political economy and development, with a focus on political representation, electoral behavior, political competition, and public policy outcomes in developing countries, particularly India. His work combines rigorous applied microeconometric methods with large-scale administrative and survey-based data to study how political incentives shape development outcomes.
In his research, he explores themes such as gender representation in politics, the effects of political competition and conflict, and the role of institutional interventions in influencing voter behavior. His work leverages quasi-experimental designs to identify causal relationships, contributing to a deeper understanding of how political processes affect economic development and public service provision. His research has been published in leading journals such as Public Choice and the Scottish Journal of Political Economy, and he has presented his work at several prominent international conferences, including the European Winter Meeting of the Econometric Society and the Cornell Conference on Development Economics and Law. During his doctoral tenure at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, he was actively involved in teaching as a teaching assistant for MBA and Executive MBA courses. He also contributed to the academic community by serving as an elected representative of the doctoral programme in the student council during 2022–23.
Following the completion of his Ph.D., he joined the University of Göttingen as a Postdoctoral Fellow (Stephan Klasen Fellowship) at the university's Faculty of Business and Economics. His current research interests include political economy, development economics, public economics, and applied microeconometrics, with ongoing projects examining governance, candidate selection, and urbanization in developing economies.