Lakshmi Iyer is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. Her primary research fields are development economics and political economy, with a special emphasis on property rights and the distribution of political power within societies. Her research has examined many dimensions of the distribution of political power within emerging market countries, including the legacy of colonial rule, the division of authority between politicians and bureaucrats, and the determinants of conflict. She has also studied historical and current property rights institutions in several developing countries including India, Vietnam, China and the Philippines. Her work has been published in leading academic journals in economics. She has also authored a book of case studies Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in Emerging Markets (link: http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9777)

She holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute, and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her work can be found at: http://www3.nd.edu/~liyer/