Why econonomics?
Out of the hundreds of subjects available, economics particularly captivated me because of its direct application to the real world. I became especially interested in how economic theory can be used to explain complex issues such as inequality, incentives, global debt, and government policy. What draws me to the subject is the way it combines analytical thinking with real human behaviour, allowing abstract models to be connected to contemporary global challenges.
About Me
Growing up with ties to Nepal, the 2023 Jajarkot earthquake was not a distant news story. Witnessing its aftermath exposed something that has shaped everything since: vulnerability is not randomly distributed. Some communities absorb shocks. Others are destroyed by them. That disparity is not natural — it is structural. And understanding it is why I study economics.
How my thinking developed
That question led me to Joseph Stiglitz's The Great Divide, which showed me how tax regimes, financial deregulation, and market structures entrench inequality rather than reduce it. Gary Stevenson sharpened this further — reframing wealth concentration not as an accident but as a feature of systems where asset ownership, not labour, drives returns.
Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism challenged me to interrogate mainstream assumptions: that markets are naturally free, that growth alone reduces inequality, that trickle-down works. It doesn't.
Beyond the classroom
A residential programme at Churchill College, Cambridge introduced me to how state financing can make nuclear energy cheaper than private provision — a vivid illustration of how interest rates and institutional capacity fundamentally shape markets. It also sparked my interest in behavioural economics and the power of nudges to shift individual choices without coercion.
I entered the FCDO Next Generation Economics Competition, examining debt distress in low-income countries — confronting the real trade-offs policymakers face between fiscal sustainability and investment in health, education, and infrastructure. I also competed in the LSESU Economics Society competition, exploring tariffs and public deficits, and completed the Scholars Programme with a First, investigating growth-sustainability trade-offs.
To consolidate my interest in behavioural economics, I delivered a TED-style lecture on incentives — examining how monetary rewards can crowd out intrinsic motivation, and why policy interventions do not always produce expected behavioural change.
A two-week placement in accounting and audit grounded this theoretical work in practice, showing how incentives and regulation operate at the firm level under genuine uncertainty.
What drives me
Inequality — in wealth, in resilience, in opportunity — sits at the centre of almost every economic question I find interesting. From sovereign debt to asset taxation, from behavioural nudges to market structure, I keep returning to the same problem: how do we design systems that are not just efficient, but fair?
That is what I intend to spend my degree — and career — working on.
