Tanu Kumar is an assistant professor of political science at Claremont Graduate University. She studies political, economic, and social behavior in low- and middle-income countries with a particular interest in the effects of policies related to housing and digital technology. Her expertise is in urban India, and she is beginning to study Sub-Saharan Africa.
Her research has been published in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Development Economics, and World Development. Media coverage of this work includes The Washington Post, The Times of India, and this Discourse Magazine podcast. She has been named a Susan Clarke Young Scholar and won a Best Dissertation Award (Honorable Mention) from APSA’s Urban and Local Politics Section.
“Home-price subsidies increase local-level political participation in urban India.” Journal of Politics, (2022).
Co-authored with Alison E. Post, Isha Ray, Megan Otsuka, and Francesc Pardo-Bosch. “From public service access to service quality: The distributive politics of piped water in Bangalore.” World Development, (2022).
“The housing quality, income, and human capital effects of subsidized homes in urban India.” Journal of Development Economics, (2021).
Co-authored with Alison E. Post and Isha Ray. “Flows, leaks, and blockages in informational interventions: A field experimental study of Bangalore’s water sector.” World Development, (2018).
Comparative Political Behavior Nature of Inquiry (Introduction to Data and Research Design in Social Science)