Welcome!

I'm a PhD candidate working under the supervision of Professor Miguel Sarzosa at Purdue University. I'm on the 2022-23 Economics job market.  

My fields of specialization are Applied Microeconomics, Labor and Public Economics. Specifically, I work on exploring the causes, consequences and solutions to the issues of under-representation of women in STEM fields in college, STEM occupations and the gender earnings gap. More broadly, my research interests include handling large datasets and using econometric methods to find causal estimates of the effects of education and related policies as well as studying issues like discrimination in all its forms.

Why should we, as economists, expend time and resources to study the issue of gender gap in STEM? There are several economic consequences of women being under-represented in STEM fields. It contributes to the gender earnings gap. It is economically inefficient. And it implies that scientific inventions may not adequately account for the needs of half of the population.

In my job market paper, I evaluate how adoption of common K-12 standards - the most-used policy promoted by the 2009 Race to the Top Program - affected students' high school and post-secondary performance and career choices, as well as the gender gaps in these outcomes. In my previous project, I explored how teacher gender affects girls' high school STEM performance and preference.  

Papers:

Sanyal, A. Impacts of the 2009 Race to the Top Program and Associated Common K-12 Standards-Adoption on Gender Achievement Gaps (Working paper)

Sanyal, A. Impact of Teacher-Student Gender Matching on Girls’ STEM Skills and Preference (Working paper)

Fields of interest:

Labor Economics, Applied Econometrics, Public Economics, Economics of Gender, Economics of Education

Education:

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN, USA

Ph.D., Expected July 2023

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN, USA

M.A. Economics, December 2018

Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

M.A. Economics , July 2016

University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India

B.Sc. Economics , July 2014