Harshita Agrawal

Harshita Agrawal is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is an economist and political scientist whose research focuses on the political economy of urbanization, with an emphasis on how urban infrastructure and institutional failures shape economic opportunity and structural transformation. Her work focuses on how procurement rules, contract design, and weak accountability undermine market-supporting institutions and limit people’s freedom to move, trade, and access jobs.  

Prior to joining Mercatus, Agrawal worked as a digital transformation consultant at the World Bank, where she led geospatial risk assessments of telecom infrastructure. She has also worked with LSE Cities in London on decarbonizing strategies for the UK, and with IDFC Institute (Artha Global) in Mumbai on housing regulation and infrastructure priorities for job creation. Agrawal holds a master’s in public policy from the London School of Economics, a postgraduate diploma in economics and public policy from the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.