Nikhil Kumar is a PhD candidate in Public Policy (Economics Track) from Bihar, India. His research focuses on development economics, labor economics, and political economy. His current projects include studying the role of classroom environment, regular monitoring, and teacher incentives in student academic outcomes and socio-emotional skills; what determines employee referrals and retention among rural migrant workers in urban areas; and how empowering citizens and tax collectors shapes their interaction as well as tax collection. Prior to his graduate studies, he worked as a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (Mumbai, India) and a master’s degree in Economic Policy from Boston University.