Vatsal is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the University of Oxford. He is also a visiting fellow for spring term 2020-21 at Harvard University, affiliated with the program in Economics. He models, measures, and analyses social networks to understand problems in development economics. In his theoretical work, he analyses the multiplicative impact of individual idiosyncrasies on social learning. His empirical work studies how peers can affect individual decisions to exert effort in a classroom or engage in a conversation about mental health. To shed light on this, he, along with his coauthors, is currently running two randomized control trials in the fields of education and mental health in Pakistan and India respectively. 

Vatsal holds a MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford and a BA in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. He has also worked as a research assistant at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford and a research consultant at JPAL, India.