Santanu Roy

Dr. Santanu Roy is a microeconomic theorist with broad research interests in the areas of industrial organization, information economics, natural resources, international trade and economic growth. He grew up in the state of Assam in north eastern India and studied at the University of Delhi before receiving his doctorate at Cornell University. Prior to joining SMU in 2003, he taught at Erasmus University (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Florida International University.

One strand of his research focuses on markets and institutions where economic agents interact over time under incomplete information. In particular, he has studied dynamic trading in markets with adverse selection, effect of transparency of past trades, signaling and strategic communication of private information in oligopolies, regulation of information communication, and dynamic charitable fundraising. A second strand of his research focuses on dynamic resource allocation under uncertainty and includes problems of sustaining positive consumption, economic growth in the presence of non-convexities, extinction and conservation of renewable resources, control and eradication of invasive species, forest management and deforestation. He has also studied the dynamics of industry structure and issues related to strategic trade policy and trade agreements.

His research has appeared in some of the most prominent journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Economic Journal, International Economic Review, Journal of International Economics and Rand Journal of Economics.

His current research investigates the role of price transparency in repeated sales, search transparency as well as two-sided strategic information acquisition.

At SMU, Dr. Roy has given distinguished service. He served as Department Chair in Economics from 2014 to 2020 and before that as Director of Graduate Studies in Economics from 2006 to 2014; he also served as Director of Doctoral Program from 2022 to 2024. In 2013-14, he served as President of the Faculty Senate and a member of the SMU Board of Trustees.

In 2014, he received the Distinguished University Citizen Award and, in 2015, the Dedman Family Distinguished Professor Award. He held a Gerald J. Ford Research Fellowship in 2006.

Beyond SMU, he has been a Research Fellow (since 2013) at RIEB, Kobe University, Japan. Earlier, he was a Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute Rotterdam, The Netherlands, as well as Honorary Professor at HSE, Moscow, Russia.