Abhit Bhandari

Substitutes For Rule of Law? How BITs Deepen But Do Not Broaden U.S. Investment in Developing Countries (with Joonseok Yang). 2025. International Interactions 51(6): 1067-1088. [Journal link] [Ungated preprint]

Able and Mostly Willing: An Empirical Anatomy of Information's Effect on Voter-Driven Accountability in Senegal (with Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall). 2023. American Journal of Political Science 67(4): 1040-1066. [Journal link] [Ungated preprint]

Social, Formal, and Political Determinants of Trade Under Weak Rule of Law: Experimental Evidence from Senegalese Firms. 2023. Comparative Political Studies 56(2): 163-192. [Journal link] [Ungated preprint]

Political Determinants of Economic Exchange: Evidence from a Business Experiment in Senegal. 2022. American Journal of Political Science 66(4): 835-852. [Journal link] [Ungated preprint]

• Michael Wallerstein Award for Best Article in Political Economy, APSA, 2023
• Covered in: [World Bank Development Impact Blog] [An Africanist Perspective] [Financial Access Initiative] [Jain Family Institute]

Nation-State or Nation-Family? Nationalism in Marginalized African Societies (with Lisa Mueller). 2019. Journal of Modern African Studies 57(2): 297-322. [Journal link] [Ungated preprint]

• Covered in: [The Washington Post's Monkey Cage]

Property Rights for Some: Political Connections and Markets Under Selective Rule of Law

Access Denied: How Bureaucratic Partisanship and Gender Bias Prevent Private-Sector Development. [Download]

• Best paper award, Class and Inequality Section, APSA 2024

Private-Sector Support for Programmatic Candidates: Evidence from a Senegalese Election (with Lucas Borba and Jessica Gottlieb). [Download]

Political Connections, Patronage, and Consumer Attitudes: The Non-Electoral Consequences of Clientelism (with Erin York). [Download]

Formalizing Inequality? Firms' Political Connections the Limits of Institutions in Developing Markets. [Download]

The Political Nature of Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Tunisia and Senegal (with Robert Kubinec, Sekou Jabateh, and Hamza Mighri). [Download]

Who Becomes a Bureaucrat? How Bureaucratic Backgrounds Shape Access to Economic Opportunity in Senegal.

How Chinese Economic Interests Shape Legislative Behavior in Africa: Evidence from Zambia's Parliament (with Donghyun Danny Choi).

Overlapping Networks of Political Power (with Jennifer Larson).

Protest as a Shock to Economic Exchange: Trust and Trading Behavior in Senegal (with Lisa Mueller).

Political Formalization Cycles: How Political Uncertainty Can Promote Economic Development (with Lucas Borba and Guilherme Fasolin).

Fiscal Shocks and Political Futures: Exogenous Windfalls and Withdrawals of Rural Tax Revenue in Brazil (with Lucas Borba and Guilherme Fasolin).

No Trust, No Deal: How Political Mistrust Constrains Markets in the Global South (with Erin York).

The Economic Costs of Favoritism (with Horacio Larreguy).

Economics, Politics, and the Rule of Law: An Experiment in Formalization (with Jessica Gottlieb).