Game theory · Mechanism design · Social economics
I work on strategic behaviour in markets and in populations, with attention to how incentives, private information, and social identity condition the outcomes that institutions are able to implement.
Assistant Professor of Economics
Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
PhD, Evolutionary Game Theory, IIT Bombay
★ Warren Samuels Prize, Association for Social Economics, 2026
★ Teaching Excellence Award, IIM Kozhikode, 2025
/ 01 — About
My work develops in two connected directions. The first concerns mechanism design and incentive theory, where I study strategic decision systems, access frictions and their bearing on optimal taxation, and the evolutionary stability of behaviour in populations. The second concerns identity and social behaviour, where I examine how identity, consumption, conflict, and social networks shape economic choices and the norms that groups reproduce over time.
A single question runs through both directions, namely which outcomes remain reachable once we take seriously the information, the incentives, and the social structure that agents actually face. Over more than a decade I have carried the same apparatus into advisory work, including mechanism and incentive design for AI products, tokenomics for digital platforms, financial and supply-chain restructuring in the public sector, and capacity building for government and industry. My doctoral training in evolutionary game theory continues to shape how I think about stability, adjustment, and the persistence of norms.
/ 02 — Research
The programme is organised around two research pillars that share a common set of tools from game theory and mechanism design.
Pillar A · row player
Strategic decision systems, access frictions and their consequences for optimal taxation, and the evolutionary stability of behaviour. The work asks how allocation, incentives, and procedure can be designed when participants hold private information and interact over time.
Pillar B · column player
Identity and consumption, conflict and corruption, and the place of social networks in economic decision making. The work treats social identity as a determinant of choice and of the norms that populations sustain.
/ 03 — Selected work
A selection of published work and papers in progress. A complete and current list appears on Google Scholar and SSRN.
Peer-reviewed
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 37(1)
with S. Rajan and K. Gangopadhyay
Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 31(11), 2137–2163
Resonance: Journal of Science Education, 27(5), 867–875
Computational Economics, 52(2), 493–519
with D. Mukherjee and K. M. Rao
Studies in Microeconomics, 2, 121–132
with S. Iyengar
Dynamic Games and Applications, 2(4), 376–384
with K. M. Rao and A. Shaiju
Working papers
Under review, Review of Development Economics
Under review, International Tax and Public Finance
Under review, Journal of Information Technology & People
Book chapter, “The interplay of identity and social network,” in Social Network Analytics, Elsevier Academic Press, 2019. A complete list appears on Google Scholar and SSRN.
/ 04 — Teaching & capacity building
I teach game theory to management and doctoral students and design experiential material that lets learners reason through strategic situations directly. I also deliver executive and government training at scale.
Courses
Strategic-form and extensive-form analysis, information economics, and mechanism design, taught within the PGP and doctoral programmes at IIM Kozhikode.
Experiential
Interactive exercises for teaching strategic reasoning, including auction, ultimatum, sealed-bid, and willingness-to-pay games, deployed as single-file applications for live classroom use.
Supervision
Supervision of masters theses and participation in doctoral advisory committees across economics and allied areas.
Capacity building
Design and delivery of training in economics and decision making, with more than five hundred hours delivered to government departments, public-sector firms, and universities.
Selected training and capacity-building clients
/ 05 — Consulting
I advise organisations and public institutions on problems where incentives, information, and coordination determine what can be achieved. Engagements draw on the same tools that underpin the research, and they span AI product design, digital platforms, and public-sector reform.
01
Design and evaluation of allocation, procurement, and reward mechanisms, including recurring and multi-unit settings.
02
Alignment of incentives in programme and policy design, with attention to participation, information, and distributional effects.
03
Reward architecture and equilibrium analysis for digital platforms and games, including free-rider deterrence and retention.
04
Structuring of negotiation and bargaining processes, including protocols, sequencing, and the disclosure of information.
05
Applied analytics for decision making, including attribution modelling and the design of measurement and evaluation.
06
Independent review of proposed mechanisms, incentive schemes, and programme designs before they are implemented.
Selected engagements
Senior game theory consultant. Design of mechanism-theoretic frameworks for AI agent products.
Principal investigator. Need analysis, financial restructuring, and supply-chain redesign for a public-sector cooperative.
Mechanism design, intervention design, and outcome evaluation for an entrepreneurship scheme.
Reward mechanism and tokenomics for a Web3 social network, with equilibrium analysis of contribution incentives and free-rider deterrence.
Chief game theorist, non-executive. In-game economics and tokenomics for a mobile game, including retention mechanism design.
A multi-touch marketing attribution algorithm delivered as a deployable analytical framework.
Co-inventor, Indian patent application 202321053247 A, an AI system for insurance product recommendation.
/ 06 — Contact
I am glad to hear from prospective collaborators, doctoral applicants, editors, and organisations considering a consulting engagement.