Abhinash Borah’s research interests are in the fields of decision theory, behavioral economics, economic theory, public economics, political economy and welfare economics. In the field of decision theory, he has extensively looked at the choice-theoretic foundations of social preferences and has an active research program in decision making under uncertainty. He also has a keen interest in behavior theories of choice. In welfare economics, he is most interested in the problem of how to accommodate procedural fairness in social welfare and public policy assessments. In public economics and political economy, he has tried to connect behavioral choice theories to questions in these fields, especially the connection between expressive voting and social preferences, and has also worked in the area of endogenous fiscal policy and economic redistribution. In other work, he has been actively investigating the question of how social identities operate, and how they interact with individual behavior and perception. He also has a research program that tries to understand how individual decisions are shaped by social influence and the ramification of this for problems in economics. Of late, his research has also branched out into experimental economics.
Abhinash has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania where he worked under the supervision of the renowned economist, Andrew Postlewaite. He brings a diverse teaching experience to Ashoka. He has taught courses at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Economics, Finance and Management (Frankfurt), Johannes Gutenberg University and Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi). Abhinash organizes the Delhi Economic Theory Workshop Series with Debasis Mishra of the Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi) and the Delhi Political Economy Workshop Series with his colleague Sabyasachi Das. He also coordinates a research reading group on Behavior, Incentives and Design (BID).
