Overview
I am a research assistant and co-author to Professor Danish Khan, extending his work in heterodox and institutional economics into a labor and political-economy paper targeting World Development. The project brings a development-economics lens — grounded in the frameworks of Kalyan Sanyal and Danish Khan — to one of South Asia's most persistent problems: bonded labor.
Core question: Can an "accumulation–need frontier" theory explain the persistence of debt bondage? We test it empirically for Nepal's Haliya and Kamaiya communities using data from 2000 onward.
What I Do
1. Theoretical & Literature Work
- Conducting literature review and theoretical analysis of Sanyal's and Khan's frameworks for understanding bonded labor in South Asia, with a focus on Nepal
- Mapping the gap between heterodox theory (Marxian and Foucauldian lenses) and the available empirical evidence
2. Empirical Strategy & Modeling
- Developing the econometric model to empirically test the "accumulation–need frontier" theory for the Haliya and Kamaiya communities
- Applying difference-in-differences, causal-inference, and canonical-regression designs
- Interpreting results in collaboration with Prof. Khan as both supervisor and co-author
3. Data Engineering
- Building SQL and Excel datasets covering 2000 to the present
- Sourcing and reconciling data from ILO, the National Statistics Office, and base reports
Methods & Tools
Difference-in-Differences
Causal Inference
Canonical Regression
SQL
Excel
Development Economics
Heterodox / Institutional Theory
Why It Matters
Beyond the paper, this role is central to my research identity: it pairs rigorous empirical methods with a serious theoretical tradition, on a question with real human stakes. It is the clearest expression of the development- and labor-economics direction I want to pursue in doctoral study.