Bio
I am an Assistant Professor at the IIES. I did my PhD in Economics at the LSE and was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the O’Donnell Center for Behavioral Economics, UC Berkeley.
My research examines how governments can optimally provide assistance and social protection to help the most vulnerable meet their basic needs. I focus on the role of psychological factors, such as mental health and behavioural biases, in shaping behaviour and policy effectiveness.
📄 CV
📧 canishknaik@gmail.com
Pronouns: he/him
Working Papers
CESifo Distinguished Affiliate Award in Behavioral Economics, REStud NA Tour
October 2026
Abstract (click to expand)
: People with mental disorders are vulnerable, yet may struggle to overcome barriers to assistance. In population-wide Dutch administrative data, they are 3× more likely to be poor than people with good mental health, yet receive social assistance at similar rates. Policies raising barriers disproportionately screen out those with mental disorders. This is not due to lower need: they respond more to exogenous variation in benefits. Combining these patterns with a model implies a 57% higher cost of barriers and 2.2× marginal value of benefits for poor versus good mental health, conditional on income. Thus, similar take-up levels mask poor targeting.
(with
Neil Thakral)
September 2026
Abstract (click to expand)
: Public-housing authorities restrict applicants' choices to balance prioritizing vulnerable households against preventing congestion. How do applicants' mistakes influence the effectiveness of these restrictions? We combine administrative vacancy data with a survey of 587 UK public-housing residents, estimating preferences via a choice experiment and eliciting behavioral biases. We compare two policies: the UK-mechanism batches arrivals and restricts acceptances; the US-mechanism restricts rejections. Under rationality, the US-mechanism reduces congestion but delivers smaller match-quality advantages for higher-priority applicants than the UK-mechanism. Bias affects the UK-mechanism more strongly overall. Some individual mistakes even improve social welfare by reducing congestion. The welfare ranking of the mechanisms therefore depends on applicant biases.
Online Appendix
(with
Daniel Reck)
October 2025
Abstract (click to expand)
: Inconsistent choice undermines the revealed preference foundations of traditional welfare economics, leading to controversy about policymaking in the presence of behavioral frictions. We model an optimal policy problem wherein a benevolent planner is uncertain which behavioral frame reveals normative preferences. We axiomatize welfarist criteria that are similar to social welfare functions, with intrapersonal frames replacing interpersonal types. Under paternalistic ambiguity aversion or paternalistic risk aversion, the planner values policies that are robust to normative uncertainty. We apply these welfarist criteria and robustness concepts in examples, including default options, manipulation of reference points, present focus, corrective taxation for internalities, and nudging.
Work in Progress
Mind the Gap: Understanding Socio-economic Inequality in Mental Health
(with
Will Parker
, Johannes Spinnewijn)
Abstract (click to expand)
: This paper quantifies mental health inequality and explores the underlying mechanisms using administrative data covering the entire Dutch population. Individuals at the bottom of the income distribution use psychotropic medications 2.5 times more, are hospitalized for mental health conditions 3 times more, and die by suicide 3.5 times more than those at the top. Unequal healthcare access cannot explain this gradient, allowing us to focus on the decomposition into two key channels: social causation (poverty causing poor mental health) and social drift (poor mental health causing poverty). We find limited evidence for social causation except during adolescence. The gradient is instead primarily driven by social drift: mental health shocks impose substantial earnings penalties, with work status as the key mediator. These findings highlight the value of targeted mental disorder prevention for children of low-income parents and enhanced social insurance against the economic costs of mental illness.
The Fundamental Need for Shelter: Evidence from the World’s Largest Home Reconstruction Program
(with
Amen Jalal
, Pol Simpson)
Abstract (click to expand)
: Psychologists have long argued that human needs are met in order of priority: until basic needs such as shelter are secured, attention and effort remain focused on them, delaying higher-order pursuits. This idea has implications for a range of economic outcomes — shaping, for instance, how much background risk a household bears and, thus, how willing it is to make high-risk, high-reward investments in the future. Despite its influence, the idea that needs follow a hierarchy has rarely been tested using credible causal evidence on economic behaviour. We provide such a test using the reconstruction of flood-destroyed homes in Sindh, Pakistan. Exploiting staggered disbursements of home-reconstruction grants, we compare otherwise-similar households that received funding just before and just after a program expansion. Combining administrative records with a survey of 6,000 households, we estimate the effects of home security on risk-taking, migration, health, schooling, and productive investment.
Teaching
LSE
School of Public Policy (Graduate)
Public Economics for Public Policy (2022 – 2024)
Teaching evaluations: 2022 (4.8/5)| 2023 (5/5)| 2024 (4.7/5)
Class Teacher Award: 2023, 2024 (highly commended)
Excellence in Education Award: 2022, 2023, 2024
Economics Department (Undergraduate)
First-year Micro- and Macroeconomics (2021 – 2023)
Teaching evaluations: 2021 (4.5/5)| 2022 (4.7/5)| 2023 (4.6/5)
Economics Department (Graduate)
Intro Probability and Statistics (Math Camp) (2022 – 2024)
No teaching evalutions
Theme: Minimal by orderedlist
