Vivek Pandey

Dr. Vivek Pandey is a Professor at IIM Ahmedabad and holds a joint appointment in the Public Systems Group (PSG) and Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA). He previously worked at Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) as Professor and Dean (Faculty Affairs).

Vivek works at the intersection of development policy, agribusiness systems, and data-driven institutional design and innovations, with a particular focus on livelihoods, health, agriculture, and financial inclusion. Over the past decade, his research has combined large scale field experiments and institutional partnerships to study how households, implementing agencies, and local organizations make choices, particularly in the contexts marked by poverty, information frictions, and weak state capacity. He has provided research leadership at the Verghese Kurien Policy Lab (VKPL) that specialized in implementing and testing complex development interventions through field and laboratory experiments, and machine learning. The empirical and data-driven approach to developmental puzzles has enabled his work to generate robust evidence on alternative development strategies and identify what works (and why?).

His research portfolio spans maternal and child health, survey experiments, nutrition sensitive agriculture, rural entrepreneurship, dairy value chains, and watershed governance. A distinctive feature of his work has been the integration of micro-level behavioural insights with intervention design. For instance, how frontline workers build trust, how digital public infrastructures-based products can be adapted to improve household welfare, how SHG meetings can be leveraged to mitigate rational ignorance in culturally reticent households in difficult-to-reach communities. He is particularly interested in leveraging and testing the extant social networks in technology diffusion in complex social settings and technology grey zones.

A rapidly growing strand of his work focuses on quality of field survey data and measurement. Vivek has designed and implemented novel interventions in the context of strategic (mis)use of CAPI surveys and interviewer effects. These include agentic feedback loops, placebo modulesto enhance efficacy of audio audits. His methodological interests include precision experimentation, Causal Machine Learning, and observational designs.

His teaching and training interests align well with his research initiatives. He has developed courses including Field Experiments, Designing Social Protection, Applied Data Science for Managers, Causal Machine Learning for business decisions, AI and Public Policy. He regularly conducts workshops on similar themes for doctoral students and early career faculty.

Vivek has extensive experience in raising research grants and consulting on themes related to agricultural and rural development, livelihoods, food and nutrition, school meal programs, financial inclusion and applied development policy. He has collaborated with major funding agencies including the World Bank, BMGF, UNICEF, IDRC, Tata Trusts, Government departments, raising nearly USD three million in external grants. His research has consistently appeared in reputed outlets including Food Policy, Feminist Economics, Business & Society, Public Administration & development.