<![CDATA[NCAER-Growth, Macro, Trade, and Economic Policy]]> <![CDATA[Growth, Macro, Trade, and Economic Policy]]> https://www.ncaer.org/category_details.php?cID=1 Studies

Assessment of Alcohol Taxation, Affordability and Price Elasticity Patterns in India





The broad objective of the project is to estimate overall tax burden and elasticity of alcohol products for the last 10 years in 7 selected states (Delhi, MP, Sikkim, Maharashtra, Bihar, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh) of India. To attain this goal, the research study involves undertaking the specific tasks: Reviewing of the state wise price mechanisms and structure of taxation across various types of alcohol products; Estimating the trend in sales, consumption, and affordability of different alcohol products for the last 10 years; Examining the price and tax elasticity of different alcohol products segregated by geography and socio-economic status; Estimating the cross-price elasticity between alcohol products; Analyze state wise increase in revenue in relation with increase in taxation for last 10 years; and, Provide an estimated incremental tax requirement for relative reduction in consumption of alcohol by 10 % by 2025.

Analysis of India's Logistics Costs





Before making any policy intervention, it is important to estimate the overall logistics costs, including the various associated components/elements in order to understand and identify the problem areas and arrive at meaningful solutions. This NCAER report symbolises a major step in the direction of quantification of logistics costs. Such an exercise, in fact, needs to be conducted at regular intervals for estimating and monitoring the performance indicators and accordingly identifying the areas that need intervention. Hitherto, no serious attempt had been made to carry out research using a proper methodological framework for quantifying the logistics costs being incurred in India. Albeit, some estimates of the logistics costs incurred in the country are available in the public domain. However, these costs cannot be validated due to the non-availability of a framework for their estimation procedures. This also necessitates more comprehensive research in the area of estimation of logistics costs in India. In this context, the Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce, commissioned NCAER to undertake interlinked studies for addressing the following issues related to the logistics ecosystem of India: (a) Route Study: Time and cost analysis of cargo movement along major routes in the country; (b) Estimation of overall logistics costs in India; and (c) Organisation of a Policy Roundtable among stakeholders to identify and tackle the challenges being faced by this sector.

Research and Estimation of Macroeconomic Logistics costs





High Logistics Costs in India compared to countries with similar environment & state of development are matter of concern for manufacturing growth and comprehensive development of the country. Several reasons are often cited for high logistics costs namely, unfavourable policy regime, lack of multimodal transport system (heavy reliance on road transport), fragmented Storage infrastructure, presence of multiple stakeholders in the entire transport and storage value chain, poor quality of road and port infrastructure, and the absence of technology intervention at storage/transportation and distribution activities. The high cost of logistics affects the country’s competiveness in export and domestic markets. It is important to estimate overall logistics costs, including its various components/elements, so as to understand where problem are and the corresponding solutions. To meet the overall objective of understanding the cost of undertaking logistics in India, Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce, has commissioned NCAER to undertake interlinked studies with the following objectives: (a) Cost analysis of cargo movement on major routes (Route Study); (b) Estimation of Macroeconomic logistics cost; and (c) A Policy Roundtable among stake-holders

Implement Digital Direct Benefit Transfers: A DBT Readiness Index for the States of India





Both the central and state governments in India operate a vast array of cash and in-kind transfers to protect its poor. But these social protection schemes often suffer from substantial leakages and poor targeting, distort market functioning by subsidising prices and thereby impose significant fiscal stress without commensurate social benefits. India is seeking to port these subsidies into direct-to-beneficiary transfers, often called Direct Benefit Transfers or DBT. Implementing DBT should be a means to an end, not only to reduce leakages in the Indian subsidy system, but also to ensure that the targeted poor and vulnerable in society get timely transfers at low cost in time and money. In the Indian context DBT readiness is the ability of states/UTs to pursue government to citizen (G2C) and government to bank/business solutions through the use of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) viz. electronic transfer of cash or in-kind benefits from government to citizen or for effecting cashless in- kind transfers. Accurate targeting of beneficiaries due to Aadhar and biometric verification makes it feasible to avoid leakages due to ghost beneficiaries and to avoid leakages due to duplication errors . The DBT-Readiness of all Indian states and Union Territories (UTs) will be assessed both annually and quarterly by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) over the next three years starting from 2016 to 2018 based on annual surveys. The quarterly assessment will be based off a combination of primary and secondary data available or made available by state/UT governments. States/UTs will be ranked relatively using the annual surveys. The quarterly rankings will be based off absolute index, which will help track states/UTs their own growth over time. In addition to the overall DBT assessment of states and UTs, this survey undertakes DBT Readiness of 10 Central Schemes.

Study on India's Trade Preference Scheme for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa





This study aims to provide a simulation analysis of the trade preference scheme specified by India to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa on the basis of plausible alternative scenarios for an enhanced and expanded duty-free scheme, and to produce a report, written in a style accessible to a non-technical audience, with appropriate recommendations.

Macro-Econometric Modelling for India Incorporating Accounting of Centre-State Fiscal Systems for Finance Commission, GOI





The study will prepare a macro-fiscal framework for medium term projections and simulations of alternative scenarios keeping in view the issues that need to be addressed by the Finance Commission in light of Commission’s Terms of Reference.

Enhancing the Scope and Quality of Indian FDI Statistics





This study is targeted at bringing the focus of high-level policy attention on the urgent need to revamp India’s FDI statistical system for an accurate view of Foreign Direct Investment inflows a / outflows and their impact.

Kerala Perspective Plan 2030





The Kerala Perspective Plan 2030 (KPP) is a State Board of Planning initiative that will serve as the basis for implementation of a series of initiatives aimed at fostering sustained growth of the economy. These initiatives will facilitate the Kerala economy to leapfrog and catch up with high income countries. It is organised into three volumes. While Volume I focuses on the broad macro-economic strategy, Volume II covers major economic sectors (agriculture and allied sectors, ICT, industry and tourism), utilities (energy and water) and infrastructure (urbanisation, transport and road, and rural development) of the economy. Finally, Volume III spread over 8 chapters focuses on cross cutting themes. These initiatives will facilitate the Kerala economy to leapfrog into catching up with high income countries.

Food Grain Stocking Policy for India





Pending legislation, which will guarantee access by the poor to a specified quantity of food grains, the National Food Security Bill stands to have a major impact on the food grain stocking policy in India. The Bill mentions cash transfers and issuing food coupons to eligible families. However, no concrete steps have been spelled out on this front. It is therefore supposed that the present system of procurement and storage of food grains by the Central and State government agencies shall continue. The successful implementation of the Act will clearly require that much larger stocks be held. Whether these stocks are held by the government or the private sector depends on new instruments being created, e.g., negotiable warehouse receipts-, on new institutions such as public-private partnerships in warehousing and on changes to the legal structure, especially the Essential Commodities Act and the Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act

Developing an Input-Output Table for Gujarat with new Green Industries





The objective of this study is to analyse job creation and growth potential of the state of Gujarat using both secondary and primary data sources through input-output modeling. The degree of impact of exogenous factors on output of a particular sector on all sectors through different multiplier effects is examined. Three of the most frequently used types of multiplier estimate the impacts of the exogenous changes on (i) outputs of the sectors in the economy (output multiplier), (ii) income earned by households because of the new outputs (income multiplier), and (iii) employment that is expected to be generated because of the new output (employment multiplier).

Publications

India Policy Forum 2018





This 15th India Policy Forum 2018 Volume comprises papers and highlights of the discussions at the two-day conference in New Delhi on July 10-11, 2018. The IPF is NCAER’s annual economic policy research conference that brings together academics, policymakers, industry representatives, media, and researchers for discussions on key issues of Indian economic policy.

Analysing Socio-Economic Impact of the NDP-I





About 70 million population are engaged in milk production in India of which a very large proportion belongs to landless, marginal and small farmers. The Socio-Economic Survey of NCAER (September-October, 2020) brought out explicitly the impact of dairy activities on the smallholders livelihood, income and women participation. Village-Based Milk Procurement System (VBMPS), one of the major components of the National Dairy Plan Phase I (NDP-I) implemented by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to promote transparency of operations and enhance quality of milk, continued to achieve the targets. The economic and financial analysis (EFA) for the study was conducted separately for major investment activities, namely, breed improvement and Artificial Insemination (AI) service delivery, animal nutrition management, and milk collection and bulking investments; which together accounted for 96 per cent of the project costs. The benefits were aggregated and compared with the entire project costs, including costs like project management and learning. The interventions under NDP-I also focused on several areas like fodder management, re-vegetation of degraded land due to over-grazing and setting up of semen stations for genetically high variety of milch animals including bulls, all of which contributed in achieving the UNDP’s objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Evaluation of India's Tele-Law Scheme





This NCAER study evaluates the Tele-Law Scheme of the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India that links rural citizens with urban lawyers using ICT. The study provides a number of important insights on the operation and impact of the scheme and proposes a set of recommendations, especially in view of the potential national rollout of the scheme. The Central Government is setting up a CSC in each Gram Panchayat, making a national rollout technically feasible. The question this study answers is how best to configure the technical and professional services under Tele-Law to make them more accessible in a meaningful way for the needy. The study highlights the need for strong, last-mile outreach and education about the scheme at the local level. It points to the need for increasing the number of empanelled lawyers, especially as demand rises, or as a national rollout is considered. The study recommends a strong, continuous, monitoring and evaluation for the Tele-Law Scheme so that problems and constraints can be addressed rapidly on both the human and technical fronts in this innovative scheme.

The NCAER 2019-20 Mid-Year Review of the India Economy





NCAER’s Mid-Year Review of the Indian Economy (MYR) presents the most comprehensive, independent assessment of the Indian economy. The 2019-20 Review has been published in a longstanding partnership with the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi.

The US-China Trade War Impact on India and its Policy Choices





The five-year period 2012-13 to 2016-17 witnessed a decline in Indian merchandise exports at an average rate of 4.5 percent per annum. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry initiated a discussion in August 2018 on designing a strategy for doubling India’s exports by 2025. This growth from US$ 504 billion exports of goods and services in 2017-18 to above US$ 1,000 billion in 2025-26 would imply an underlying growth rate of exports of above 9 percent per annum. While merchandise exports constitute close to 63 percent of total exports, the share of service exports has been 37 percent during the last three years, 2015-16 to 2017-18. Assuming these proportions remain unchanged, a doubling of merchandise exports in six years would mean going from the base 2017-18 level of US$ 309 billion to about US$ 618 billion by 2025-26, and service exports going from US$ 195 billion to US$ 390 billion. These are challenging targets. They raise the question of whether there are unexplored strategic opportunities in the current global trade situation, including in the looming US-China trade war, which can help India either achieve these targets or at least ensure that there are no significant reversals on the path to achieving them. This NCAER paper reflects on how India should react to the trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

MARGIN The Journal of Applied Economic Research





The Journal of Applied Economic Research (JAER) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, international journal published by NCAER in New Delhi in conjunction with SAGE International. JAER publishes papers that pay special attention to the economics of emerging economies, but is open to high-quality papers from all fields of applied economics.

Analysis of India's Logistics Costs





Before making any policy intervention, it is important to estimate the overall logistics costs, including the various associated components/elements in order to understand and identify the problem areas and arrive at meaningful solutions. This NCAER report symbolises a major step in the direction of quantification of logistics costs. Such an exercise, in fact, needs to be conducted at regular intervals for estimating and monitoring the performance indicators and accordingly identifying the areas that need intervention. Hitherto, no serious attempt had been made to carry out research using a proper methodological framework for quantifying the logistics costs being incurred in India. Albeit, some estimates of the logistics costs incurred in the country are available in the public domain. However, these costs cannot be validated due to the non-availability of a framework for their estimation procedures. This also necessitates more comprehensive research in the area of estimation of logistics costs in India. In this context, the Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce, commissioned NCAER to undertake interlinked studies for addressing the following issues related to the logistics ecosystem of India: *Route Study: Time and cost analysis of cargo movement along major routes in the country; *Estimation of overall logistics costs in India; and *Organisation of a Policy Roundtable among stakeholders to identify and tackle the challenges being faced by this sector.

Perceptions of Key Logistics Players





The high logistics costs in India as compared to those in countries that have similar business environments and are going through the same stage of growth is a matter of serious concern for both the country’s manufacturing sector and its comprehensive development as a whole. Several reasons are cited for the high logistics costs in India. These include an unfavourable policy regime, lack of a multimodal transport system and the consequent heavy reliance on road transport, fragmented storage infrastructure, the presence of multiple stakeholders in the entire transport and storage value chain, poor quality of road and port infrastructure, and the absence of technology intervention in storage/transportation and distribution activities. These high logistics costs inevitably have an adverse effect on the country’s competiveness in the globalised world.

Quantifying India's Logistics Costs





The prevalence of high logistics costs in India as compared to other countries with a similar environment and level of development is a matter of concern as it poses challenges for the manufacturing growth and comprehensive development of the country. Several reasons are cited for the high logistics costs in India, including an unfavourable policy regime, lack of a multimodal transport system and consequently the heavy reliance on road transport, a fragmented storage infrastructure, the presence of multiple stakeholders in the entire transport and storage value chain, poor quality of road and port infrastructure, and the absence of technological intervention in storage/transportation and distribution activities. These high logistics costs inevitably have an adverse effect on the country’s global competitiveness.

Subsidies, Merit Goods and the Fiscal Space for Reviving Growth: An Aspect of Public Expenditure in India





Budget subsidies have been defined as the unrecovered cost of economic and social services. The incidence of these implicit and explicit budget subsidies provided by the central and state governments has declined from about 12.9 % of GDP in 1987-88 to 10.3 % at present. The bulk of these subsidies is provided by the states and about half is spent on non-merit subsidies. The paper finds an inverse relationship between subsidy incidence and per capita income and also finds that subsidies are important determinant of the consumption of many public services though not all. There are large variations across states in the efficiency of subsidy use and the paper identifies the states which lie on the subsidy efficiency frontier for several key public services. The paper also argues that rationalisng non-merit subsidies is one of several deep fiscal reform measures that could together free up massive fiscal space, conservatively estimated at 6% of GDP, and outlines a proposal for using this fiscal space to finance an inclusive growth revival strategy that could simultaneously reduce the fiscal deficit even without raising any tax rates.

Events

How to leverage open government, research, and data to strengthen public policymaking in India

November 7, 2019



Around 100 participants from a diverse group of researchers, policymakers, civil society, representatives of international organizations and corporate sector attended this seminar co-hosted by NCAER and 3ie. The event was held in the new Conference Centre at NCAER offering world-class facilities. Participants working on development economics, impact evaluation and for the government as well as technology sector discussed on a variety of topics on how to leverage open government, data and research to strengthen public policymaking in India.

Market Failure, Government Failure, and the Welfare of Poor People

December 7, 2017



NCAER organised a conversation with Shanta Devarajan, Senior Director for Development Economics at the World Bank in Washington DC and Non-resident Senior Fellow, on what to do when markets and governments fail poor people in delivering services in health, education, infrastructure, the environment, and the rule of law.

Mid-Year Review of the Economy 2017-18

November 11, 2017



In a long standing partnership with the India International Centre, NCAER released its 2017-18 Mid-year Review (MYR) of the Indian Economy, at the India International Centre, New Delhi. The MYR presents the most comprehensive, independent assessment of the Indian economy.

Malcolm Adiseshiah Mid-Year Review of the Indian Economy 2017-18

November 11, 2017

Book Launch: The 21st Century: Asia's?

November 8, 2017



The launch of the latest NCAER book, “The 21st Century: Asia’s?", by Rajat Nag took place at the India International Centre today. The book is based on five lectures delivered by Nag at NCAER. In these lectures, Mr Nag shared his insights and experiences garnered during his long years of work on development issues in Asia.

Colonial Legacy, Services Trade and LDCs

October 16, 2017

The India Policy Forum 2017

July 11, 2017



NCAER’s 14th India Policy Forum was held at the India International Centre in New Delhi on July 11-12, 2017. The IPF is NCAER’s annual economic policy research conference that brings together academics, policymakers, industry representatives, media, and researchers for discussions on key issues of Indian economic policy. The IPF includes presentations of original commissioned papers, leading to a published volume, and the annual IPF Lecture.

The 5th C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture 2017

January 27, 2017



Dr Vijay Kelkar delivered NCAER's 5th C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture 2017 at the Nehru Memorial Library Auditorium, Teen Murti Bhavan, in New Delhi. Dr Kelkar spoke on his Reflections on the Art and Science of Policymaking. The distinguished audience included eminent economists, civil servants, industry analysts, media and a large number of students. Dr Bimal Jalan, former President of NCAER’s Governing Body and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, was the evening’s Guest of Honour.

Investor-friendly India: How are India's States Faring? A NCAER-PRI Dialogue

December 20, 2016



NCAER organized an NCAER-PRI video-dialogue, the third in the series of an on-going dialogue with PRI. The theme of the dialogue was India’s investment climate and focused particularly on India’s states. PRI, the Policy Research Institute in Japan, is affiliated with the Japanese Ministry of Finance. The Dialogue follows two earlier video-dialogues in February and June 2015 and is part of the work envisaged by NCAER and PRI to foster joint work and greater collaboration in enhancing economic relations between Japan and India.

Measuring Money: Using Divisia Monetary Aggregates to avoid Policy Mishaps

November 22, 2016



In this seminar held at NCAER, a presentation by Dr Soumya Bhadury, Associate Fellow at NCAER explored the potential role of Divisia monetary aggregates in the Indian context, including how better data can assist the new Monetary Policy Committee decision-making process. Besides, explaining the Divisia aggregates, Soumya explained in detail the experiences of the European Central Bank and the central banks of Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States after their adoption of such aggregates.

Researchers

Saurabh Bandyopadhyay



Saurabh Bandyopadhyay is a Fellow at NCAER.  He has worked in the areas of industry, infrastructure, agriculture, and consumer demand, including in projects with important field survey components.  His recent research includes work on transport, including understanding freight demand for Indian Railways and an earlier study for the Railways on passenger demand, and on the aviation sector to estimate the economic and regional impacts of an international airline’s operations.   He is currently working as part of a team on developing a skills index for the states of India for a large research project on understanding the demand and supply factors for skilling in India, and is likely to begin work on a study of the medium and long-term competitiveness of the Indian Railways. Bandyopadhyay received his PhD in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an MSc in economics from the University of Calcutta.

Kaushik Basu



Kaushik Basu is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012-16). From December 2009 to July 2012 he served as the Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the Government of India at the Ministry of Finance. Till 2009 he was Chairman of the Department of Economics and during 2006-9 he was Director of the Center for Analytic Economics at Cornell. Earlier he was Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, where in 1992 he founded the Centre for Development Economics in Delhi was its first Executive Director. He is also a founding member of the Madras School of Economics

 

In May 2008 he was awarded one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, by the President of India. He has received several honorary degrees, including doctorates from IIT Bombay, Fordham University New York and Bath University, England.

 

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Jagdish Bhagwati



Jagdish Bhagwati is University Professor (Economics, Law, and International Affairs) at Columbia University. He has been economic policy adviser the Director-General of GATT (1991-93), special adviser to the UN on globalization, and external adviser to the WTO. He has served on the expert group appointed by the director-general of the WTO on the future of the WTO and was  a member of the Eminent Persons Group on the future of UNCTAD. Recently, he has been co-chair with President Halonen of Finland of the Eminent Persons Group on Developing Countries in the World Economy. He received his BA in Economics from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

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Bornali Bhandari



Bornali Bhandari is a Senior Fellow at NCAER with a background in international economics and macroeconomics, specifically focusing on the impact of globalisation on development. Currently she is engaged in analysing and assessing the progress and prospects of implementing Direct Benefit Transfers in states and Union Territories. Her wider research interests include analysis of skilling from a 3-E perspective (education, employability and employment), infrastructure, particularly the roads and ICT sectors, G-20 issues like climate change financing and reserve currency, FDI and trade-related issues. She also oversees the production of NCAER’s macro publications, the Quarterly Review of the Economy, and Quarterly Business Expectations Survey. 

 

Bornali received her PhD in Economics from the University of Oregon, Eugene, USA.

 

Shashanka Bhide



Dr Shashanka Bhide is a Senior Advisor, Research Programmes, at NCAER. He was associated with NCAER from 1982 to 2014 in different capacities. After leaving NCAER in July 2014, he took up the position of Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai until his retirement in December 2018. His research has covered a number of areas in agriculture, macroeconomic modelling, infrastructure and poverty analysis. He has published extensively, including co-authoring and editing books and journal articles in these fields. Shashanka currently also serves as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of RBI and Board of Governors of the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bangalore.

Pallavi Choudhuri



Pallavi Choudhuri is a Fellow at NCAER, working with the National Data Innovation Centre (NDIC). Her ongoing research delves into issues related to gender, financial inclusion, and development, using applied micro-econometric tools. Previously at NCAER, she has worked on assessing challenges to skill development and workforce participation and on examining the pace of business regulatory reforms. Prior to joining NCAER, Choudhuri taught courses in Economics and Finance at the Grand Valley State University and the University of Wyoming. She has a PhD in Economics from the University of Wyoming, where her research focused on risks and regulation in the U.S. banking industry.

Sanjukta Das



Sanjukta Das is an Associate Fellow at NCAER. She is an applied micro-economist with interests also in macroeconomics and economic growth issues. In her doctoral research on “Rethinking Approaches to Food Security and Poverty in Developing Economies,” Sanjukta worked on identifying the optimal design of food security policies for poverty alleviation. Sanjukta received her PhD in economics from the University of Georgia, USA and a M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics.

Madhura Dasgupta



Madhura  joined NCAER  after completing her PhD in economics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her interests are both in macro and micro work and cover public economics, economic development and growth, applied microeconomics and macroeconomics, and computational economics. She has experience in working with large panel data sets, multivariate linear and logistic regression, IV estimation analysis, time series analysis and forecasting, and computational modelling. Her PhD dissertation on the “Private Provision of Public Infrastructure: Growth and Welfare Implications,” builds on both the theory and empirics of the private provision of public goods.  She uses a model of incomplete contracting between the government and the private sector to analyze how such private investment and the allocation of ownership rights affect the degree of economic efficiency. 

Tasneem Ravindra Deo



Stefan Dercon



Stefan Dercon is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department, and a Fellow of Jesus College. He is also Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies.Prior to this, he was Chief Economist of the Department of International Development (DFID), the government department in charge with the UK’s aid policy and spending. In this position, he provided strategic advice, and was responsible for ensuring the use of evidence in decision making. He has held positions at the University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the Catholic University of Leuven, and WIDER (Helsinki), part of the United Nations University.

 

His research interests concern what keeps some people and countries poor: the failures of markets, governments and politics, mainly in Africa, and how to achieve change. Current research work focuses on the psychological challenges of poverty, the political economy of development, the challenges of industrialisation in Africa, the challenges and opportunities of new technologies, and how to organise and finance responses to natural disasters and protracted humanitarian crises. In 2018, the Queen awarded him as an honorary Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to economics and international development. Dercon received his PhD in Economics from Oxford University.

 

Link to view full profile:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/stefan-dercon

Shaantayanan Devarajan



Shantayanan Devarajan is the World Bank’s Senior Director for Development Economics.  Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, and the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network, and of the South Asia, Africa, and Middle East and North Africa Regions.  Before 1991, he was on the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Born in Sri Lanka, Devarajan received his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

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D B Gupta



D B Gupta is currently a Senior Adviser at NCAER. He was associated with the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi; National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi; the World Bank; and the Government of India as an adviser to the Planning Commission and Department of Family Welfare. He has held several honorary chairs and visiting faculty positions to institutes in India and abroad. His primary areas of interest include health economics, environmental economics, urban development, housing, Indian industry and developmental economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Birmingham, England.

Samarth Gupta



Samarth Gupta is an Associate Fellow at NCAER. His primary research interests include organization economics, labor economics and development economics. In his doctoral research, he analyzed a novel dataset from a life insurance firm in India  to understand the sources of variation in managerial productivity. He is also interested in political economy and more particularly in how media polarization affects political outcomes. Samarth received his PhD in Economics from Boston University.

Charu Jain



Dr Charu Jain is an Associate Fellow at NCAER. Prior to this she had worked at TNS India Ltd and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), New Delhi. Her areas of research interest include socio-economic issues, gender and educational studies, consumer studies and developmental changes. She has worked in the area of large scale consumer studies, industrial surveys, housing studies, agriculture and macro-economic policy issues. Her current research focuses on the agricultural outlook and handloom sector. She received her PhD in Economics from School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi.

Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal



Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal, Fellow at NCAER. He has been the Principal Investigator for an evaluation study of MGNREGA by the Planning Commission. His expertise is survey-based research in the social sector with strong skills in qualitative research methods.  

Ravi Kanbur



Ravi Kanbur is the T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Prior to this he has served on the senior staff of the World Bank, including as Resident Representative in Ghana, Chief Economist of the African Region, and Principal Adviser to the Chief Economist of the World Bank. He has also served as Director of the World Bank's World Development Report. Kanbur is also President-Elect of the Human Development and Capabilities Association, Past-President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, Chair of the Board of UNU-WIDER, Co-Chair of the Scientific Council of the International Panel on Social Progress, member of the High Level Advisory Council of the Climate Justice Dialogue, member of the OECD High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance, and a member of the Core Group of the Commission on Global Poverty. His main areas of interest are public economics, development economics and economic theory. He has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Essex, Warwick, Princeton and Columbia. 

 

He has a PhD in Economics from the University of  Oxford.

 

Link to view full profile:

http://www.kanbur.aem.cornell.edu/papers/VitaeLatest.pdf

 

Ritwik Kinra



K P Krishnan



Dr K P Krishnan is the IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics. The Chair has been established with the support of the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority of the Government of India.  Dr Krishnan leads a group focused on research and policy outreach in the broad area of regulatory and public economics, including concerns about investor protection and financial sector reforms, land policy and records, public finance and public administration, and law, economics, and justice.  


Before his retirement from public service in December 2019, Dr Krishnan was the Union Secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.  Prior to that he was Special & Additional Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development; Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance; Principal Secretary, Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms in the Government of Karnataka (his parent cadre); Secretary to the PM’s Economic Advisory Council in New Delhi; Joint Secretary, DEA; Secretary Finance in Karnataka; Advisor to the Indian ED at the World Bank, Dr Bimal Jalan; and a number of other positions after joining the Indian Administrative Service in the 1983 batch. 


Trained in economics, finance, and law, Dr Krishnan has chaired or served as a member of several Government of India committees, including the Krishnan Committee on Cross Border Insolvency Rules/Regulation Committee, the Krishnan Committee on Comprehensive Regulation of Credit Rating Agencies, the T K Viswanathan Committee on Reform of Bankruptcy Laws in India; the Rangarajan High-level Expert Committee on Efficient Management of Public Expenditure; High-level Coordination Committee on Financial Markets chaired by the RBI Governor; and the Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms.


Professor Krishnan has taught as a visiting professor at the Indian School of Business, at Ashoka University, as BOK Visiting International School Professor of Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and he regularly lectures at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussorie.  He has published on a range of public policy issues in books, journals, and the mainstream media. Dr Krishnan holds a B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St Stephen’s College and an LL.B. degree from the University of Delhi, an M.A. in Economics from the University of Mysore, and a FPM/Ph.D. in Economics & Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. 

Sumit Kumar

Gurucharan Manna



Gurucharan Manna recently joined NCAER as a Senior Adviser at NCAER. He was the Director General of CSO and NSSO in the Government of India.  Dr Manna has nearly 40 years of specialized experience in sample design, estimation procedures for household and establishment surveys, and the design of survey questionnaires and related documents for fieldwork and data validation.  Over the years, his responsibilities at NSSO/CSO have included the compilation of GDP estimates; conduct of the 6th Economic Census; technical coordination and supervision of the Annual Survey of Industries, Energy Statistics, and Infrastructure Statistics; compilation of the Index of Industrial Production and the Index of Service Production; finalization of survey methodologies and reports for NSSO socio-economic surveys; and compilation of foreign trade statistics. Dr Manna is currently a member of the Ministry of Statistics Standing Committee on Labour Force Statistics, the Working Groups of the NSS 75th and 76th Rounds, the NSSO’s Standing Committee on Labour Force Statistics, and the Labour Bureau’s Expert Group on the Quarterly Employment Survey.  

Rajnish Mehra



Rajnish Mehra holds the E.N. Basha Arizona Heritage Chair at W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. He is also the Deutsche Bank Luxembourg Visiting Professor of Finance, Luxembourg School of Finance and a Research Associate at NBER. His research interests focus on capital markets, asset pricing and growth theory. He is the author of the Handbook of the Equity Risk Premium. 

 

Mehra has a PhD in Finance from Carnegie-Mellon University.

 

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http://www.academicwebpages.com/preview/mehra/background/index.html

 

Sudipto Mundle



Sudipto Mundle is a Distinguished Fellow at NCAER. Formerly, he was an Emeritus Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. He serves on several corporate and other boards. He was also a member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, the erstwhile Monetary Policy Advisory Committee of the RBI  and the National Statistical Commission, where he also acted as Chairman. 

 

He spent much of his career at the Asian Development Bank, Manila, from where he retired as a Director in the Strategy and Policy Department in 2008. In his earlier career in India he served in several academic institutions including the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, and NIPFP, New Delhi, where he was the Reserve Bank Chair Professor. He has had visiting assignments at Yale University, USA; Cambridge University, UK; the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague and the Japan Foundation, Tokyo. He was also an economic adviser in India’s Ministry of Finance from 1986 to 1989. His current research interests include development economics, macroeconomic policy and modelling, public expenditure policy and governance. 

 

Poonam Munjal



Poonam Munjal is a Senior Fellow at the NCAER. She has worked on a wide variety of studies, including the N-SIPI investment index, tourism satellite accounts, impact of investment in housing sector and a number of research studies based on input-output models. Previously, she worked as an Associate Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd. and as an Economist in the Economic Research Team of CRISIL Ltd. Her research work has been in the area of macro-economic analysis, tourism economy, national and regional tourism satellite accounts, input-output modelling, social accounting matrix, inter-industry linkages, labour market analysis, and analyses of large sample surveys to draw socio-economic linkages.

Premila Nazareth Satyanand



Sanjib Pohit



Sanjib Pohit is a Professor at NCAER. He is an experienced modeler in the area of trade and environment with 20 years of modelling experience. His domain of research experience includes science and technology policies, institutional economics, transport economics, input-output models, FDI, informal trade, automobile industry, and South Asian integration. Previously, he held position at CSIR-National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies as Professor AcSIR & Senior Principal Scientist. He has served as members of several committees of Government of India including climate Change Modelling group of Ministry of Environment & Forests. He was educated at Indian Statistical Institute. 

Prerna Prabhakar



Prerna Prabhakar is Associate Fellow at NCAER. Her primary areas of research include international economics and land related issues.  At NCAER, she has been part of the research team for conducting a pilot impact assessment exercise of the Digital India-Land Records Modernization Programme, a Government of India programme to modernise land records in India. Her other assignments involve work on the NCAER State Investment Potential Index (NSIPI), 2017 and 2018 editions. Her current research interests pertain to land institutions and its linkages with the economy and hence the influence on the global competitiveness.  

Prerna has a PhD in International Trade from the Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi, and MSc in Economics from TERI School of Advanced Studies.

 

Santanu Pramanik



Santanu Pramanik is a Senior Fellow at NCAER and the Deputy Director of the National Data Innovation Centre. He is a Statistician and Survey Methodologist by training. 


His methodological research interests lie in survey methods, data quality, randomized controlled trials, small area estimation being applied across different substantive domains including childhood immunization, health insurance & healthcare expenditure, family planning. Before joining NCAER he worked as a Research Scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). His PHFI work led to successful evaluation studies on the impact of the Health Ministry’s flagship childhood immunization programme Mission Indradhanush, effectiveness of a community engagement approach in improving immunisation coverage in Assam, on temperature monitoring systems for vaccine cold chains in Haryana and Delhi, and on the Vaccine Intelligence Network in Uttar Pradesh.  Prior to joining PHFI, Santanu was based in Washington DC as a Survey Statistician at NORC, an independent affiliate of the University of Chicago.  

Devender Pratap



Devender Pratap is a Fellow at NCAER. His current research interests include trade policy analysis/CGE modelling, GTAP database, social accounting matrix, input output analysis, construction of base-run for CGE modelling, macro-econometric modelling and agricultural/livestock economy. At NCAER, he has handled three major CGE models in single-country and multi-country frameworks. He has also been involved in the NCAER survey of agricultural markets in India.  

Raghuram Rajan



Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2013 and September 2016. Prior to that, he was the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006, the youngest person ever to hold the position. His research is broadly on the role of institutions, especially financial institutions, in fostering economic development. He is an electrical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. He earned his M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his Ph.D. from MIT.

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M Govinda Rao



M. Govinda Rao is a former member of the 14th Finance Commission and Non-resident Senior Fellow, NCAER. He was earlier the Director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and is now an Emeritus Professor there.His past positions include Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change (1998-2002) and Fellow, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia and Professor at NIPFP. He was a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India; a Member of Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission and High Level Expert Committee on Universalising Healthcare, Member, High-Level Expert Committee on Efficient Management of Public Expenditure, Advisory Group of Eminent Persons to advise the Finance Minister on G-20 matters. His past advisory roles include Chairman of the Committee for the Implementation of Value Added Tax and Chairman, Expert Group on Taxation of Services. He is a Member, Board of Governors in Institute of Economic Growth, Institute for Social and Economic Change and Madras School of Economics. Dr Rao’s research interests include fiscal decentralization and federalism, state and local finances, tax policy and reforms, public expenditure management.

Shekhar Shah



Shekhar Shah is the Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).

 

As the CEO of India’s oldest and largest independent economic think tank, he manages NCAER’s wide-ranging research activities across all sectors of the economy, including its extensive data collection, innovation, and curation activities. Prior to joining NCAER Shah was the World Bank’s Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia and, earlier, Sector Manager in the Bank’s research complex and a principal author of the 2004 World Development Report, Making Services Work for Poor People. During a World Bank career spanning more than two decades, Shah also served as the Bank’s Deputy Research Administrator, Sector Manager for Public Sector Management for Europe and Central Asia, and Lead Economist for Bangladesh. Before joining the Bank he was the Ford Foundation’s Program Officer for Economics and International Relations for South Asia. He worked earlier in Washington DC consulting for the US Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, the OCC, and US banks and bank holding companies.

 

Shah received his BA in Economics from St Stephens College, Delhi University, and his MA and PhD in Economics from Columbia University. 

Animesh Sharma



K A Siddiqui



K.A. Siddiqui is a Senior Fellow at NCAER with a background in Input-Output Modelling, macroeconomics and large scale primary studies. He has developed a user-friendly dashboard using data of NCAER’s National Survey of Households on Income and Expenditure. In the past, he has worked on various studies related to Tourism Satellite Account, Social Accounting Matrix, Informal economy and labour market analysis.

Anushree Sinha



Anushree Sinha, Professor, joined NCAER in 1989 and has held several positions since then. Before assuming her current position, she was NCAER’s Principal Economist during 2001-2003.  She worked in macro- economic analyses including Macro Forecasting Modelling at NCAER. In her current research she uses general equilibrium frameworks to analyse the impact of policies and external economic shocks on the social sector including the informal and female workers. She is a post- doctorate from the Department of International Development, University of Oxford and has been a Fulbright-Nehru Lecturing Professor at Rutgers during 2013-14.

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