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 is currently working on several projects related to the determinants and consequences of women’s political participation. 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.