(Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)

I am an economist at the University of Notre Dame. My primary fields of research are political economy and development economics. My CV is here.

Positions

• University of Notre Dame
  • Professor of Economics and Global Affairs
  • Academic Director, Building Inclusive Growth (BIG) Lab
  • Principal Investigator, Representation of Women (ROW) Lab
  • Faculty affiliate:  Kellogg Institute for International Studies; Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies; Gender Studies Program; Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate; Pulte Institute for Global Development
• Institute of Labor Economics (IZA): Research Fellow
• Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD): Affiliate
• Ideas for India: Editorial Board Member

NEW!!

• Forthcoming: Fertig, Alexander, Alexandra Hartman, Lakshmi Iyer, and Edmund Malesky. “A Field of Her Own: Property Rights and Women’s Agency in Myanmar.” Conditionally accepted, Journal of Politics. 
• New working paper: Iyer, Lakshmi, and Coleson Weir. “The Colonial Legacy in India: How Persistent are the Effects of Historical Institutions?” June 2024.
• Updated working paper: Chaudhary, Latika, and Lakshmi Iyer. “The Importance of Being Local? Administrative Decentralization and Human Development.”  June 2024.
• Book chapter: Bhalotra, Sonia, and Lakshmi Iyer. “Women and the Economy.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern South Asia, edited by Latika Chaudhary, Tirthankar Roy, and Anand Swamy. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
• Journal article: Cassan, Guilhem, Lakshmi Iyer, and Rinchan Ali Mirza. “Enfranchisement, Political Participation and Political Competition: Evidence from Colonial and Independent India.”  Journal of Economic History, forthcoming. 
• Podcast: Faguet, Jean-Paul, Lakshmi Iyer and Sarmishta Pal. “The growing wave of decentralisation: Comparative evidence from developing countries.” Ideas for India Conversation, November 2023.
• Podcast: “Democracy and political participation in India,” interviewed by Tim Phillips, CEPR VoxTalks, August 2023.
• Podcast: “Women’s Economic Empowerment,” interviewed by Grace Ortuzar, Kellogg Institute Global Stage podcast series, August 2023.
• Working paper: “Ethnic Conflict: The Role of Ethnic Representation,” with Sonia Bhalotra and Irma Clots-Figueras, WIDER Working Paper 2023/84, June 2023.
• “Memo on ‘Economic Determinants’ by Carl Henrik Knutsen and Sirianne Dahlum,” Democracy and Autocracy 21(1), June 2023.
• Article: “Leader Identity and Coordination.” (with Sonia Bhalotra, Irma Clots-Figueras and Joseph Vecci),  Review of Economics and Statistics, 105 (1): 175–189, 2023.
• New book chapter: “Gender and Natural Experiments in Developing Countries,” with Irma Clots-Figueras, forthcoming in Handbook of Experimental Development Economics, edited by Utteeyo Dasgupta and Pushkar Maitra, December 2022.