Aashish Mehta

Biography

Aashish Mehta is a development economist. Born and raised in India, he trained in economics and energy policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he completed his PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics. He spent three years at the Asian Development Bank, working on electricity sector reforms, macroeconomic monitoring and employment-related research, before returning to the academy to teach and conduct research on the political-economy of development.

While his core interests involve globalization, economic development, education and labor markets, his publications cover many other aspects of development policy, including inequality, public services provision, corruption, discrimination and commodity price management.  His work appears in a wide variety of peer-reviewed economics and public policy journals.

Professor Mehta received UCSB’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017.