Contact Info

Reach me at either sarang.a.shah@gmail.com or sarang.shah@berkeley.edu.

EDUCATION

University of California, Berkeley. Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, anticipated completion 2026.

Committee: Paul Pierson, David Grewal, Sarah Anzia, Jacob Grumbach, Steve Vogel, David Broockman

M.A., 2023, Thesis: Limited Liability, Full Anonymity: LLCs as Dark Money Vessels

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law. J.D., 2021, California Bar lic. no.: 342210

University of Cambridge, Wolfson College. Mathematics Tripos, 2012

Trinity College Dublin. M.Sc. Theoretical Physics, 2011

Thesis: Moduli Space of SU(2) Singular Monopole

Georgia Institute of Technology

B.S. Physics, summa cum laude, 2009. Minor in Public Policy

PUBLICATIONS

Hersh, E., and Sarang Shah. “Who Wants Stakeholder Capitalism? Public and Elite Perceptions of the Role of Business in Politics.” Forthcoming, Perspectives on Politics (2025).

• Survey of top-level business leaders across the United States finding significant appetite among respondents for greater business engagement in workforce, social, and environmental issues. Coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Hersh, E., and Sarang Shah. “The Partisan Realignment of American Business: Evidence from a Survey of Corporate Leaders.” Forthcoming, British Journal of Political Science (2025).

• Survey of top-level business leaders across the United States finding significant partisan shift among respondents toward the Democratic Party, and a perceived shift on the part of business leaders of other stakeholders moving toward the left.

Shah, S. “Moduli space of SU(2) singular monopole,” M.Sc. thesis, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (2011). Advisor: Sergey Cherkis

• Computational and analytic dissertation proof of the Nahm transform on SU(2) monopoles in string theory using Hyperkähler manifolds.

Hövel, P., Sarang Shah, Markus Dahlem, and Eckehard Schöll. “Feedback-dependent control of stochastic synchronization in coupled neural systems,” From Physics to Control Through an Emergent View, eds. Fortuna, L., Fradkov, A. L. & Frasca, M. (World Scientific, Singapore), pp. 35–44 (2010).

• Computational neuroscience simulation showing the optimal parameters for neural feedback loops in addressing Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders, contributing to the development of neural “pacemakers” for patients.

WORKING PAPERS

Shah, S., “Limited Liability, Full Anonymity: LLCs as Dark Money Vessels.” (under review, Electoral Studies). Advisor: Paul Pierson.

• Difference-in-difference causal inference study showing a lack of significant identifiable effect of Citizens United on the formation rate of LLCs, corporate entities in general, and the proportion of LLCs to corporations, concluding that the feared proliferation of LLCs as dark money vessels is unfounded.

Shah, S., “Law and Policy Feedback Loops for an Industrial Policy of Housing.” Advisors: David Grewal, Paul Pierson, David Broockman, Sarah Anzia, Jacob Grumbach.

• Law review article project incorporating dissertation research on the strategic use of state law and policy by state legislators in California from 2014-24 to reshape the political and money-in-politics landscape of California housing politics to offer generalized recommendations for industrial policymaking on housing.

Shah, S., “The Sleeping Corporate Sovereign: A Political Theory of Corporate Governance Law”

• Law review article project diagnosing the conceptual muddle of shareholder, board primacy, and stakeholder theories of corporate governance law, offering conceptual clarification to these theories through the introduction of a sovereignty/governance distinction, and suggesting amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law integrating this distinction.

Shah, S. “A Dynamic Reinterpration of Microeconomic Theory for Industrial Policymaking.”

• Economic methodology paper suggesting an alternate signals-based approach to conceptualizing economic dynamics through the use of Hamiltonian mechanics for the purpose of modeling time-based dynamics in industrial policymaking.

Shah, S., Davey Kim. “The Hidden Cleavages of Housing Politics.” Advisors: Paul Pierson, David Broockman, Sarah Anzia.

• Qualitative and network analysis investigation of civil society housing politics coalitions in the Bay Area and the policy cleavages and affinities obscured by coalitional dynamics, identifying potential new housing politics coalitions.

Shah, S., David Grewal, and Sanjay Reddy. “‘Health and Decency’: A Political Economy History of the Consumer Price Index.”

• Law review article tracing the political economy history of the Consumer Price Index from its inception, finding that a “health and decency” standard once promoted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on behalf of workers has receded in favor of a more putatively objective measure due to the integration of academic economics into federal agencies and the Supreme Court’s holding in Amalgamated Meat Cutters v. Connally setting a “self-narrowing” limit on the executive branch’s power in response to Nixon’s price controls. 

Shah, S., Vinod Aggarwal, and Andrew Reddie. “The Comparative Industrial Policies of Quantum Technologies: US and China.”

• A comparative international political economy study of the determinants of state interventions in the quantum technologies sector using a five-factor model integrating sector and technological characteristics as well as measures of the political power of firms.

CURRENT SERVICE

Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, Capitalism and Democracy Cluster

Organizer

Organize regular meetings of Berkeley research faculty to develop interdisciplinary research projects by members on the subject of capitalism and democracy.

Berkeley Industrial Policy Research Team

Founder and Organizer

Organize meetings of the graduate student-led research team to discuss industrial policy research projects of members and to devise shared frameworks across research agendas.

LECTURES AND CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

·       “Who wants stakeholder capitalism?” and “The Partisan Realignment of American Business.” Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics annual meeting 2024. July 2024, Limerick, Ireland.

·       “Who wants stakeholder capitalism?” and “Limited Liability, Full Anonymity: LLCs as Dark Money Vessels.” Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting 2024. April 2024, Chicago.

·       “Modeling market measures as signals: a dynamic reinterpretation of economic theory for industrial policy.” Presented at the Stanford Economic Methodology: Models, Measurements, and Interventions. March 2024, Stanford.

·       “Who wants stakeholder capitalism?” American Political Science Association annual meeting 2023. September 2023, Los Angeles.

·       “‘Health and Decency’: A Political Economy History of the CPI.” Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and Law (APPEAL) New York meeting, April 2023.

·       “The Partisan Realignment of American Business Leaders.” Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting 2023. April 2023, Chicago.

·       “The Sleeping Corporate Sovereign.” Harvard Law and Political Economy Conference, inaugural meeting. April 2023, Cambridge.

·       “Introduction to Law and Political Economy.” American Constitution Society, March 2021, Stanford Law School.

·       “Law, Money, and Technology Summer Academy: Transforming Political Economy.” Law and Money panel moderator. July 2020, University of Manchester.

·       “Covid-19 from a Law and Political Economy Perspective.” Panel moderator, April 13th, 2020. 

PROFESSIONAL RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Open Markets Institute (Washington, DC: May 2019 – Aug 2019)

Louis Brandeis Law and Political Economy Fellow

Drafted petitions for rulemaking to the FTC regarding vertical restraint regulation. Research projects on most favored nation clauses, just price theory, and application of democratic theory to competition law.

MapLight (Berkeley, CA: Aug 2013 – Sep 2015)

Data Editor

Translated complex legal issues and data-driven conclusions about campaign finance into press releases and stories aimed at a general audience, appearing in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, etc.  Analyzed publicly available campaign finance and lobbying disclosures and reconstructed transactions in an accessible database format. Developed advanced machine-learning, network mapping, and Markov clustering tools to organize and analyze finance data. Programmed a cloud-based crowdsourced microtasker in PHP/SQL to distribute machine training work to staff members and volunteers.

GENERAL PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Crowdpac (San Francisco, CA: Feb 2018 – Aug 2018)

Communications Fellow

Crafted effective fundraising campaigns for progressive candidates using data collected by our platform.

Palantir Technologies (Palo Alto, CA: Sep 2015 – May 2017)

Platform Writer

Documented complex technical concepts and critical workflows for technical and non-technical readers. Established and maintained several internal client-relationships with product teams and embedded consulting deployments across the company. Coded a dynamic documentation module in Java that could be deployed on a microservices cluster and received a patent on the design.

PROFESSIONAL RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS AND WHITE PAPERS

Selection of publicly-available MapLight Research Reports

·       Shah, Sarang. “Companies with Stake in Net Neutrality Debate Have Financial Ties to Subcommittee Members Overseeing FCC,” MapLight, Feb. 25, 2015.

·       Shah, Sarang. “Top 5 Homeland Security Contractors Spend $107M Lobbying Congress and Federal Agencies, Receive $9B in Contracts Sarang Shah,” MapLight, Feb. 27, 2015.

·       Shah, Sarang. “What’s the Cost of a Seat in the California State Legislature?,” MapLight, May 5, 2015

·       Shah, Sarang. “Defense Contractors Dominate List of Top 10 PAC Contributors in 2015,” MapLight, Jun. 11, 2015.

·       Shah, Sarang. “Los Angeles and Silicon Valley Among Top Zip Codes Contributing to Federal Candidates,” MapLight, Jul. 28, 2015.

·       Shah, Sarang. “Report: New Tool Reveals $80M in Independent Expenditures Spent in California’s 2014 Election,” MapLight, Sep. 28, 2015.

Wilberforce Society, Cambridge, UK

·       Shah, Sarang & Bangham, George. 2012. “The National Security Council and the Prime Minister.” Cambridge: The Wilberforce Society (March): 1-12.

HONORS AND AWARDS

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law, Dean’s Fellowship (2018-2021)

Tuition grant awarded to incoming students with excellent records of academic achievement.

Christopher Edley grant for pro bono service, Summer 2020.

George J. Mitchell Scholarship (2009)                  

Prestigious national scholarship awarded to twelve recipients annually to pursue fully-funded postgraduate study in Ireland.

DAAD RISE Scholarship (2008)           

Scholarship awarded by the German Academic Exchange Service to a select few undergraduate research fellows to pursue a research project in a German laboratory with full financial support.