Arjun Pratap Upadhyay is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Accounting at the University of Western Australia – India. He pursued his PhD in Finance, Accounting and Control at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIM Kozhikode), where his doctoral research examines rural lending in India through the broader lens of credit accessibility, financial inclusion, and economic development. His thesis investigates the effectiveness of government interventions in expanding institutional lending, credit behaviour in Left Wing Extremism-affected regions, and the relationship between social protection and credit access. His research contributes to the understanding of how financial institutions, public interventions, and household-level factors shape access to and absorption of credit in emerging economies. His PhD thesis has been submitted for evaluation.
He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management, equivalent to an MBA, with a major in Finance and Accounting from IIM Kashipur and a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical and Automation from Amity University Rajasthan.
Before entering academia, Arjun gained approximately five years of experience in the financial services industry, primarily in wealth management and private banking, where he was responsible for portfolio management and wealth advisory for high-net-worth (HNW) individuals and families. He has worked with global financial institutions, including HSBC India and Citibank N.A.
His research interests span empirical finance, banking and financial institutions, financial inclusion, household finance, rural credit markets, development finance, and applied econometrics. His research employs quantitative methods, including causal inference, Difference-in-Differences, Instrumental Variables, Propensity Score Matching, multilevel modelling, and machine learning techniques.
His research has been published in the China Accounting and Finance Review (ABDC A), and his ongoing work examines rural household savings, credit behaviour in conflict-affected regions, social protection and credit behaviour, sustainability practices in investment banking, and rural credit markets. He has presented his research at national and international academic conferences, including conferences at IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Kozhikode, and the University of Warsaw.