Avidit Acharya

Avidit (Avi) Acharya is an associate professor of political science at Stanford. He is a formal political theorist and political economist whose work ranges across a diverse set of topics including voting theory, bargaining theory, principal-agent theory, behavioral political economy, distributive politics, and long run development. Avi’s papers have been published (or are forthcoming) in the leading journals of political science, including theAmerican Political Science Review,American Journal of Political Science, andJournal of Politics, as well as the top journals in economic theory, including Econometrica,Journal of Economic Theory, and Games and Economic Behavior. Avi earned his PhD in political economy from Princeton University, and taught in the political science and economics departments of the University of Rochester before coming to Stanford.

Academic Degrees

• PhD, Political Economy, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, 2007–2012
• BA, Economics & Mathematics, Yale University, 2006

Academic Appointments

• Associate Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, 2019–present
• Associate Professor of Political Economy (by courtesy ), Stanford GSB, 2019–present
• Faculty Associate, Center on Global Poverty & Development, Stanford University, 2017–present
• Faculty Associate, Center for South Asia, Stanford University, 2014–present
• Assistant Professor,Political Science, Stanford University, 2014–2019
• Assistant Professor, Political Science and Economics, University of Rochester, 2012–2014
• Faculty Associate, Wallis Institute of Political Economy, University of Rochester, 2012–2014

Awards and Honors

• Victoria Schuck Faculty Scholar, 2019–2022
• William H. Riker Book Award for the best book in Political Economy, for Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics, 2019
• Joseph L. Bernd Best JOP paper award for “The Political Legacy of American Slavery,” (with Matt Blackwell and Maya Sen), 2016
• Fellow of the Society of Woodrow Wilson Scholars, Princeton, AY 2010–2011
• Yale MacMillan Center Grant, with John Roemer and Rohini Somanathan, for conducting the Uttar Pradesh Political Opinion Survey, 2008
• Wrexham Prize, Yale College, for “the best senior essay in the social sciences,” 2006