Welcome! I am an Associate Professor of Public Policy (tenure-track) at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. I am a scholar of inequality, distribution, and democracy. My research focuses on the politics of social policy, state-business relations, and South Asia. My CV is available here. In case you would like to get in touch, you can reach me at gnair@hks.harvard.edu.

I conduct research in comparative and international political economy. My first book is Retail State: The Politics of Consumption Welfare in India and Beyond (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press). For hundreds of millions of people around the world, the welfare state delivers subsidized grain, cooking gas, or a free television, rather than a pension, an unemployment check, or cash. The book explains why, and traces the consequences for democracy and development. My second book project is titled Incidental Representation: How Business Interests Advance the Public Good. Some of my other research is published in the Journal of Politics, International Organization, and PNAS Nexus, among other journals.

My work has been recognized with the Midwest Political Science Association’s Paula D. McClain Award for best paper and Kellogg/Notre Dame Award for best paper in comparative politics. I am also the recipient of best paper awards from the American Political Science Association’s sections on American Political Economy and Class and Inequality. My research has been supported by competitive grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the NSF-funded Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences, the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, and Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Stone Center for Inequality and Wealth Distribution, and Mittal South Asia Institute. 

At Harvard Kennedy School, I teach the core course on the political economy of development in the Masters in Public Administration/International Development, as well as an elective on politics and policy in South Asia. I serve as a co-chair of the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Business and Government. I am a faculty affiliate of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the Center for International Development at HKS, as well as the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality, and Social Policy. Born and raised in India, I received my PhD from Yale University.