What governs the pace of life? In his book Scale, Geoffrey West shows that deep, mathematical patterns govern all complex life — from biological organisms to cities and corporations. Growth, it turns out, obeys laws more universal than we imagined.

🚨PhD alert! In light of everything happening in the world, the Econ Department at Imperial Business School is conducting a second lightning round of admissions for fall 2025! Applications due April 30, offers in mid-May. Please spread the word! More details: dropbox.com/scl/fi/55wkl2q…

Very honored to be included in Project Syndicate’s Forward Thinkers list. To mark their 30th anniversary they highlight 30 global voices shaping the future of public discourse and progress. More on this fantastic list of people at forwardthinkers1.project-syndicate.org. #PS30

The Workshop on Public Sector Organizational Effectiveness is recruiting another fantastic cohort. I had a fantastic experience being a part of the inaugural cohort! Please apply by May 15 here: tinyurl.com/effectivestates Reach out to Erin McDonnell for questions!

CAFRAL is glad to host Dr. Neelanjan Sircar and Priya Vedavalli from Artha Global as part of the CAFRAL Research Seminar Series. 🗓️ Apr29, 2025 | 11:00 AM 📍 CAFRAL, BKC, Mumbai 📄 Topic: Changing Dynamics in Rural India – Female Labour Force Participation & Livelihood Schemes

Traditional surveys and admin data show us what is happening. But to understand how people are coping—and respond in real time—we need rapid data. From heat stress to migration to women’s work, our work at Artha Global show what’s possible. Neelanjan Sircar and I write on Mint

We'll have 10 panels with 2 papers each, on topics including bureaucrats, legislatures, courts, revolving doors, lobbying, political selection, and government spending.

Our paper, "Policing in Patriarchy," was just awarded the 2025 APSA-PSA International Partnerships Award. It's been a joy to work on this (for years now) with Akshay Mangla｜अक्षय मंगला and Sandip Sukhtankar! psa.ac.uk/psa/news/%E2%8…

That was an outstanding briefing. And I ought to add: Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh aren't just soldiers. They are a living negation of the very premise upon which Pakistan was invented.

📢📢 We are hiring! 📢📢 Looking for a Research Associate with STRONG DATA skills! Join Sid George, Sid Hari, Apurva Bamezai, Nandini Gupta + me on exciting research + policy work in Bihar! Apply here: shorturl.at/EXxS2 Econ RA Listings

Introducing soarXiv ✈️, the most beautiful way to explore human knowledge Take any paper's URL and replace arxiv with soarxiv (show in video) to teleport to its place in the universe I've embedded all 2.8M papers up until April 2025 Try it at: soarxiv dot org

Non-stop rain in Bangalore. Must be due to all the investments we made in cloud.

In India, judge in-group bias by gender, religion, & caste is minimal. Just Accepted new paper by Elliott Ash, Sam Asher, Aditi Roy Bhowmick, S. Bhupatiraju, D. Chen, Christoph Goessmann, Paul Novosad, Bilal Siddiqi zurl.co/NXXnA

New research from Shoumitro Chatterjee et al. finds that exit barriers are an important reason for India’s underdeveloped manufacturing sector. These barriers not only deter entry but also trap resources in unproductive firms.

Real Estate Regulatory Authority was introduced in 2016 to bring about transparency in the Indian real estate What was its impact on outcomes? We answer this question in our new Journal of Public Economics paper "Do mandatory disclosures squeeze the lemons?" Link sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 🧵👇 1/6

"Exit barriers reduce entry, misallocate resources and create a long right tail in the age distribution of firms." From a new paper by Shoumitro Chatterjee, Kala Krishna, Kalyani Padmakumar and Yingyan Zhao: "No Country for Dying Firms: Evidence from India"

Very honored that our book Migrants and Machine Politics is the co-winner of the 2025 Francine Frankel Prize. Many thanks to the award committee. And many congratulations to Sandipto Dasgupta for his fabulous book! 📕📗📘📙 Princeton University Press Tariq Thachil

"Anybody who is perpetrating injustice today, anybody who is cruel today, common sense will tell us. Brothers and sisters, children in a family, parents, husband and wife may fight, may have disputes today. If everybody is going back to what happened 50 years ago, 60 years ago,

My dissertation addresses two questions: a) What are the different strategies available to states wanting to engage in counterproliferation? b) Which of those strategies do they choose and why? More details can be found here: singhkunal.com/bookproject/

Last year we launched the Archives on India platform listing and mapping over 600 archives. The map has received over 150K views so far! We've added dozens of new additions to the database and continue to update this with new information. A must-see resource for history-buff!