Akshay Govind Dixit is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Economy and Government at Harvard University. He is a Democracy Doctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Ph.D. Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration, and a recipient of the Amartya Sen Fellowship for Students from India. His research is focused on how the democratic welfare state in India affects redistribution within caste networks and reshapes people’s sense of caste identity. He also studies how people form beliefs about inequality and redistribution in India. In ongoing research with Rachel Brulé, he is examining the effect of climate change-induced weather shocks on women’s autonomy in Bangladesh.
Prior to starting graduate school, Akshay worked on accountability in public services and youth civic engagement, first as a Senior Manager at Save the Children, and then as a Research Fellow at Harvard. He spent two years in Bangladesh as a Research Associate at Innovations for Poverty Action. Akshay has a Master’s degree in International & Development Economics from Yale University, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Presidency College in Kolkata, India.
Research interests: Political economy; South Asian politics; inequality; redistribution; identity