We spoke to Vishal to find out more about his economics background and research interests, any why he wanted to join the University of Bristol…

 

Can you tell us about your economics career to date?

I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne, where I developed my affinity for economics. I’d first become interested in the subject because I felt it offered a nice mixture between mathematics, statistics, philosophy, story-telling, and of course the social sciences. I couldn’t just pick one area to study.

At the behest of my thesis adviser I ended up applying to a bunch of PhD programmes, although truth be told I didn’t quite know what it would entail!

Fortunately I was admitted to New York University, where as part of the standard first year graduate economics curriculum I took my first real course in mathematics, taught by a decision theorist. That latter experience was profound enough to pull me into the world of microeconomic theory, which is now my main field of interest.

 

What is the current focus of your research?

I’d call the area I’m currently focused on ‘second-order decision theory’.

I’m developing methods which enable us to make comparisons between comparisons, and to make ‘graded comparisons’ between various objects. It might sound a little abstract, but I think it’s fundamental – a lot of economics really just boils down to making comparisons between things.

Let me briefly explain more about ‘graded comparisons’ to give you an idea:

Suppose you have the distributions of male wages and of female wages, having controlled for the other variables which matter. One perennial issue is the matter of a male-female wage gap. There are many ways to express this difference ‘weakly’; perhaps the median man earns more than the median woman.

If instead you want to make a more emphatic comparison, you might attempt to show that men outearn women at every percentile level, not just at the median. Let’s refer to this stronger comparison as ‘dominance’. Although ‘dominance’ generally fails to bear out in reality, it certainly looks like we come quite close. How can we rigorously articulate this level of closeness?

My work, which formalises the notion of a degree-of-dominance index, allows us to make well-founded quantitative claims about how close to dominance we are. A policymaker looking to reduce the male-female wage gap robustly might seek to bring the degree-of-dominance down to 0, in addition to targeting means and medians.

 

What impact do you hope your research can have in the real-world?

As a microeconomic theorist, one of my main aims is to develop decision-theoretic tools for other economists who work in the more applied fields, such as behavioural and experimental economics. So, I hope the tools I build will prove useful for those economists, as well as for policymakers.

I believe they can be used to improve experimental design in the lab and field – to make meaningful comparisons between objects where none were previously available, and also to help with policy targeting.

 

What attracted you to join University of Bristol?

The Microeconomic Theory research group here at the School of Economics boasts at least sixteen members. This is by far the largest theory group I have ever seen – two to three times the size of what you’ll find at most leading departments.

Our current Head of School, Professor Paola Manzini, also happens to be one of the best decision theorists in the world. As a decision theorist myself, the opportunity to participate in such an intellectually rich community cannot be paralleled.

Bristol is also home to Portishead, Massive Attack, Wallace and Gromit, Banksy, Ribena, and more. There must be something in the water!

 

What advice would you give to economics students?

I recommend a healthy dose of intellectual honesty.

There’s no shame in not knowing how or why things happen, so long as you’re able to admit to it. That ignorance presents a chance for you to explore new ideas, and to grow in your abilities.

Recognise when your beliefs rest on ideological grounds, when your assumptions have not been laid bare, and when your reasoning doesn’t meet a high standard of rigour. Lose as many opinions as you can manage. Entertain crazy ideas, without losing the understanding that they’re… crazy. Have fun!