Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University.
I study the political economy of development, with a focus on business and politics in Africa. My principal line of research examines how political dynamics shape inequalities in economic participation, access to economic opportunity, and patterns of development. My work draws on extensive fieldwork across Africa and employs field experiments, original surveys, and causal inference with observational data. I am a faculty affiliate of CSDI and CGD and am a member of EGAP.
I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and a B.A. in Political Science and African Studies from Northwestern University.
I can be reached at abhit.bhandari@vanderbilt.edu and my CV can be downloaded here.
