Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University.
I study the intersection of business, politics, and economic development in Africa. My research examines how political inequalities shape economic behavior, the functioning of formal and informal enforcement institutions, and the dynamics of unequal development. I draw on extensive fieldwork across Africa and employ a combination of experimental methods, original surveys, and qualitative research.
My research has been supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the NSF DDRIG, CEPR-DFID’s Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) initiative, J-PAL’s Governance Initiative, and the Social Science Research Council, among others. I am a member of EGAP.
I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST). I previously worked for the West African headquarters of the UN World Food Programme, and received a B.A. in Political Science and African Studies from Northwestern University.
I can be reached at abhit.bhandari@vanderbilt.edu.
