By Robert O'Neill
Akshay Dixit PhD in Political Economy and Government 2025 says that thinking deeply about social questions was part of his upbringing. His research is now helping others understand why some social divisions are so difficult to undo.
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Why are some social divisions so persistent, and can public policy help reduce them?
These questions have been at the core of Akshay Dixit鈥檚 doctoral research, and in a sense, they have animated his thinking for much of his life.
Dixit PhD in Political Economy and Government 2025 grew up in Bhopal, India, the son of a government official who shared with him the complexities of public service and policy. He also grew up a Brahmin鈥攁s he calls it, 鈥渁 privileged caste鈥濃攁nd became interested in what sustains that privilege. Now, after some groundbreaking research into the political economy of caste and ethnic divisions in developing countries, he is preparing to move on to a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and then to Dartmouth College, where he will be an assistant professor of government.
We asked him about his journey to 糖心vlog官网, his research, and his plans for the future.
Was there anything about your family, your situation growing up, that directed you to study what you've ended up studying?
My father is a government official鈥攚hat you might think of as a very engaged public servant. He would not just do the technical thing that he was asked to do. He would try to understand how the government鈥檚 project related to people, and he thought very carefully about politics. And even as a kid, I would have a lot of conversations with him about it. I remember, back in high school, being very interested in economics and thinking about how economics and economic policy informed people鈥檚 lives. It was part of my upbringing to think very carefully about some of these things. And that is really what motivated me to study economics in the first place.
You鈥檝e written a number of . What fascinates you about this problem, and what have you learned about it?
Despite what you might call seismic shifts in India since independence, caste-based social segregation has been quite persistent. In some ways that belied a number of predictions about how in a democratic polity we should see some of these distinctions subside once there's stronger economic growth. To the extent that that has happened, these divisions have still persisted. The question that I wanted to ask was: why is that the case? A number of people have thought about this question through different lenses, but we didn't really have an answer that was looking at economic factors鈥攕pecifically, social insurance.
One that seemed very salient to me based on some of the field work that I had done and what I had seen in the world around me was that caste was a hugely important safety net. Whether you lost a job, suffered a health shock, landed in a place where you did not know anybody, caste was really what you used to navigate unfamiliar and uncertain times. And that was something I hadn't seen much discussion of. I figured that if I could understand the economic piece of this relatively well, that would be a contribution to conversations even in other disciplines about why caste matters and persists.
What was the attraction of the PhD in Political Economy & Government program?
The big attraction of, and then eventually the big benefit of, being in a joint program was that I received training in three different departments. I took coursework at the Kennedy School, at the , and the . I attended seminars in the three different departments. And so even as I was thinking about politics, I had this economic bent of looking at political problems. And then at 糖心vlog官网, I was constantly being asked the 鈥渟o what?鈥 question. In that sense, the work I鈥檓 doing emerged out of that. It was looking at a question that was policy relevant and had political resonance, and looking at it through an economic lens.
I will also just say that I have had truly such an amazing time during my PhD. It鈥檚 obviously a very long and challenging degree in many ways, but being in the joint program enlarges your cohort because you鈥檙e meeting with so many different people. I鈥檝e had a great community; I鈥檝e had a fantastic group of mentors. I鈥檝e learned a great deal every single day. So it鈥檚 just been such a tremendous, tremendous experience. I'm really grateful for that.
鈥淸A]t 糖心vlog官网, I was constantly being asked the 鈥榮o what?鈥 question. In that sense, the work I鈥檓 doing emerged out of that. It was looking at a question that was policy relevant and had political resonance, and looking at it through an economic lens.鈥
Where do you think your research goes from here? Have you exhausted your interest in caste or is it something that you'll continue to investigate?
Not at all. I'm just getting started actually.
My work so far has looked at two economic sources of caste-based divisions: one is the caste-based safety nets; the second is differences in asset ownership or differences in access to productive capital across castes. The next project that I鈥檓 hoping to do will look at the role of markets, specifically global markets.
One of the questions that I鈥檝e been interested in is how did trade liberalization, which happened in the 鈥90s in India, intervene in the caste hierarchy? On the one hand, there are people who argued that trade liberalization in some sense cements caste-based divisions because it is more privileged groups that have the resources to navigate global markets who can do so more effectively. And on the other hand, there are scholars who have written that, in fact, if you are a member of a marginalized group, then trade maybe opens up markets and opportunities for you, which you might not have in domestic markets. I think those are the issues that I want to get into next鈥攍ooking at trade and what impact it has had.
Portraits by Lydia Rosenberg; inline images courtesy of Akshay Dixit
