Gautam Nair

Gautam Nair is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research focuses on inequality, distribution, and democracy, emphasizing the politics of social policy, state-business relations, and South Asia. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Yale University with distinction.

• Affiliations: Ash Center, Center for International Development, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Stone Program in Wealth Distribution.
• Teaching: Politics of Development, South Asia Policy Courses in MPA/ID program.

His book manuscript Retail State: The Politics of Consumption Welfare in India and Beyond advances new theories on redistribution. Research supported by NSF grants, TESS, and Harvard institutes.

Key interests include consumer politics, reparations, finance politics, and India’s democratic development.