I am Mate Malashkhia, a PhD candidate in Economics at Washington University in St. Louis and am on the 2025-2026 academic job market 

My primary work lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Applied Theory, examining how institutional and political environments shape incentives, collective action, market outcomes, and welfare. Much of my work focuses on the political economy of non-democratic regimes, where I analyze the strategic interactions among incumbents, challengers, citizens, external actors, and firms. The second strand of my research explores how political incentives shape citizen welfare when private markets are inefficient.