Nitin Nair

Profile

Nitin is a postgraduate researcher pursuing a PhD in economics at the Leeds University Business School. He is primarily interested in financial macroeconomics, applied macroeconometrics, and pluralist macroeconomics.

Previously, he studied at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College under Jan Kregel, Randy Wray, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Gennaro Zezza. His master’s thesis, on the macroeconomic implications of central bank foreign exchange accumulation, was supervised by Dimitri Papadimitriou. Currently, he works on analytical dynamic macroeconomic models, dynamic causality, and identification in macroeconometrics.

He has previously been employed as a teaching assistant for the introduction to economics course for the Bard MBA program. He has also been a teaching assistant for History of Economic Thought at University of Manchester, and Economic Theory and Policy at University of Leeds.

Awards

Nitin was awarded the Levy Fellowship between 2021 and 2023. He is a recipient of the LUBS economics department scholarship. In 2023, he won the 18th Annual AFIT-AFEE Student Paper Competition and EAEPE’s Herbert Simon Prize. In 2025 and 2026, he won best presentation awards at the University of Leeds Economics PhD Research Conference.

Peer reviews

Brazilian Journal of Political Economy

Journal of Post Keynesian Economics

Journal of Economic Issues

Metroeconomica

Review of Political Economy

Research interests

Nitin’s research revolves around the dynamic macroeconomic effects of disaggregated/granular heterogeneities. He is interested in identifying shocks using granular instrument variables and estimating dynamic reactions using Local Projections. He also works on formalizing empirical findings on dynamic causality within small-scale, stock-flow consistent models.

The first chapter of his research examines the implications of rising non-financial corporate cash holdings for monetary policy transmission. The second examines how energy export booms transmit to emerging market domestic macrofinancial outcomes through country level (mutual or ETF) fund flows.

More broadly, he is interested in combining research on market macrostructure and demand system asset pricing to formulate a more realistic theory of portfolio choice where asset demand and liability supply (issue) functions are conditional on the nature of the investor, balance sheet characteristics, corporate governance and the properties of financial instruments. In a world where financial structures and asset markets increasingly shape real economic outcomes, such an approach provides a necessary foundation for modern macroeconomic models.

Qualifications

• M.S. in Economic Theory and Policy, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (2021-2023)
• B.A. in Economics, Azim Premji University (2017-2020)