Bio
I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the O’Donnell Center for Behavioral Economics at UC Berkeley. I will join the IIES as an Assistant Professor in 2026.
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.
I have a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from the LSE. Before my PhD, I worked as an Economist at The Behaviouralist, a behavioural science research consultancy.
đź“„ CV
📧 canishknaik@gmail.com
Pronouns: he/him
Working Papers
(with
Neil Thakral)
May 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 biases directly. We compare two policies: the UK-mechanism batches arrivals and restricts acceptances; the US-mechanism restricts rejections. Under rationality, the US-mechanism reduces congestion at the cost of weaker prioritization than the UK-mechanism. Bias affects the UK-mechanism more strongly overall—yet some individual mistakes improve social welfare by reducing congestion. The optimal mechanism therefore depends on applicant biases.
Online Appendix
January 2026
Abstract (click to expand)
: People living with mental disorders are vulnerable, yet often struggle to navigate complex barriers to accessing assistance. How this shapes the effectiveness of the social safety net remains unclear. Using administrative data covering the population of the Netherlands, I find that people with poor mental health are 3Ă— more likely to fall below the poverty line but only receive social assistance at similar rates to those with good mental health. Moreover, a policy that increases barriers disproportionately screens out people suffering from mental disorders. This is not because they value benefits less; individuals with poor mental health respond more to exogenous variation in the benefit level, suggesting a strong redistributive motive. To interpret these patterns, I develop a simple framework showing how take-up behaviour reveals whether the neediest are being screened out. Calibrating the model shows that those with mental disorders reveal a 57% higher marginal cost of overcoming barriers and a 2Ă— higher marginal value of benefits (need), controlling for income. Therefore, similar take-up rates mask poor targeting. In this context, reducing barriers is 2.3Ă— more cost-effective than increasing benefits.
(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
The Social Determinants of 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 times more, are hospitalized for mental health conditions 2.5 times more, and die by suicide 4 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
