Asli Cansunar

I am a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for the WEALTHPOL project. I hold a PhD in Political Science (2018) and an MA in Economics (2014) from Duke University, USA. I received my bachelor's degrees in Economics and Mathematics from Koc University, Turkey (2012).

My research focuses on different aspects of the political economy of redistribution and the welfare state. I mainly pay attention to preferences over taxes, public goods provision, and social policies.

My dissertation, Redistribution by the Rich: Information, Perceptions, and Preferences, examines the effects of information about the design of the fiscal state and inequality on people’s preferences for redistributive policies and tax rates, with a special focus on how and why voters have strong misperceptions that affect such decisions.

I am also working on projects analyzing the political and economic institutions of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, I study the elite-funded welfare institutions and the political economy of social and religious inequality in the Ottoman Istanbul during 17th and 18th centuries.

Besides my research, I teach courses on political economy, political methodology, mathematics for social scientists and political economy of Islam.