Anup Malani

Anup Malani is the Lee and Brena Freeman Professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a Professor at the Pritzker School of Medicine. He also holds significant affiliations as a University Scholar at Resources for the Future in Washington, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Boston, and a Senior Fellow at the Schaeffer Center at the University of Southern California. Malani co-founded and serves as Faculty Director of the International Innovation Corps, a social service program sending University of Chicago and foreign university graduates to work on development projects in India and Brazil.

Malani earned his PhD in economics and JD, both from the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Stephen Williams on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the US Supreme Court. His academic journey includes previous appointments at Harvard Law School as Roscoe Pound Visiting Professor and at the University of Virginia Law School as Associate Professor.

Malani's research spans law and economics, health economics, and development economics. His law and economics work focuses on judicial behavior, empirical analysis of legal reforms, and blockchain. His health economics research examines infectious disease control, medical innovation value, health insurance, placebo effects, and medical conflicts of interest. His development economics work concentrates on healthcare supply and financing in India and urban slum quality of life. He leads major research initiatives including the Indian Health Insurance Experiment (an 11,000 household RCT) and impact evaluations of Mission Kakatiya in Telangana, India.

Malani's research has been published in leading journals across multiple disciplines including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Political Economy, Harvard Law Review, and Nature Medicine. His recent work has focused significantly on COVID-19 pandemic analysis, particularly in Indian contexts, examining infection rates, mortality, and policy responses.

• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2021)
• Emergent Ventures Prize (twice in 2020 for serological work and epidemiological modeling)
• Order of the Coif (2000)
• John M. Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics (1998-2000)
• Bradley Foundation Fellowship (1997-2000)

Malani advises governments in India and Indonesia on COVID policy with support from the Asian Development Bank and has advised the World Bank on COVID in South Asia. He serves on University of Virginia's working group planning a National COVID Commission. His teaching spans corporate law, health law, food and drug law, law and economics, and development in the Law School, plus economics and public policy courses across the university. He has supervised numerous research projects and has been principal investigator on multiple large-scale studies examining healthcare and development in India.

Malani directs the International Innovation Corps, which partners with government officials in India and Brazil on innovative development projects. He previously served as Faculty Director of the Tata Centre for Development at the University of Chicago. His work bridges academic research with practical policy implementation through collaborations with government agencies, international organizations, and development institutions.