Hello, I'm Saumya.

I am currently an assistant professor of economics at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS) in Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology. I completed my Ph.D. in economics at Washington University in St. Louis in 2021 and have been a Postdoctoral Associate at the W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy at the University of Rochester in 2022. My current work focuses on theoretical problems in political economy, social norms, identity, climate policy, and public policy.  

I am particularly interested in studying the interactions between cooperation, public policy implementation, and social and political institutions. I've worked on projects on norms of compromise, political coalition formation, the possible impact of government policies on identity expression and inter-group contact, and the welfare effects of protectionism on climate policy. The work I'm most excited to share with everyone soon is a behavioural study on the preferences for compromise and conflict. In the (hopefully not too distant) future, I would like to study nationalist policies behind emerging industries like renewable energy and space exploration, and the interaction between identity and the future of work. 

In my time at Thapar, I have had the rare opportunity to build an interdisciplinary department with some wonderful colleagues from different disciplines and foster some long-term collaborations. The extremely dynamic nature of liberal arts and sciences in India allows young scholars like me to get our hands dirty in institutional building and innovation from the ground up. As a result, I have been part of teams that have developed and implemented a new interdisciplinary undergraduate Foundation programme, a new undergraduate Philosophy, Politics and Economics programme, and TSLAS's own interdisciplinary faculty promotion guidelines. I've also had the opportunity to teach innovative interdisciplinary courses like "Self" and "Ethics, Politics, and Economics," along with standard economic courses such as "Principles of Microeconomics," "Mathematics for Economics," and "Political Economy." I currently coordinate TSLAS's economics programme. 

Contact: saumya.deojain@thapar.edu