01 August, 2018: The Centre for Public Policy at IIM Bangalore, in collaboration with the School of Economics at the University of Kent, hosted a workshop on campus on Political Economy on July 28 - 29.
The Political Economy Workshop (PEW) series provides a platform for engaged discussions on political economy, and the role of socio-political institutions (formal and informal) within the broad process of economic development.
Prof. Arnab Mukherji and Prof. Shabana Mitra from IIM Bangalore, and Prof. Anirban Mitra, from the University of Kent were the organizers for this year’s workshop.
LinkedIn: Here are few pictures from the first day of 2nd PEW held at IIM Bangalore.
Day 1
The day started off with an interesting plenary discussion on ‘Is Poverty Persistent?’ by Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Prof. Ashwini Deshpande, Delhi School of Economics, presented her paper on why female labour force participation is persistently low among other developing countries. Her research on ‘Choice versus Constraints: Understanding Factors Underlying Women’s Labour Force Participation’ attracted an interesting discussion after the presentation. Her area of research focuses on the Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action, with a special focus on caste and gender in India.
Prof. Deepal Basak, Faculty in the Economics and Public Policy Area, Indian School of Business, presented his paper titled, ‘Gambling over Public Opinion’. Prof. Basak’s research interests includes Economics and Management, Managerial Economics and Economic Theory.
Prof. Parikshit Ghosh, Faculty at the Delhi School of Economics, presented his paper titled, ‘Expert Capture of Democracy’ that talks about the current public policy dilemmas and what optimal public policy should depend on. Prof. Ghosh’s research focuses on game theory and information economics.
Prof. Sisir Debnath, Faculty at Economics and Public Policy Area, Indian School of Business, presented his paper titled, ‘The Impact of Electronic Voting Machines on Electoral Frauds, Democracy, and Development’. His research is on how voting technology can potentially reduce fraud and affect election outcomes.
The first day concluded with panel discussion on ‘Elections 2019 – Changing Nature of Indian Elections’. The panel included Prof. M.V. Rajeev Gowda, MP, Rajya Sabha, Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, and Prof. Sandeep Shastri, Pro-VC Jain University, Lok Niti.
Day 2
Gaurav Dhamija, PhD candidate in Economics at Shiv Nadar University, presented a paper titled, ‘Lasting Impact on Health through the Lenses of Severity in Earthquake’. Gaurav Dhamija’s research interests lie in the fields of development economics, health economics, and labour economics. Prior to enrolling for the Ph.D. programme in August 2015, Gaurav was an assistant professor at the Indian School of Business and Finance, New Delhi.
The second presentation was on ‘Decentralised Targeting of Agricultural Credit: Private v. Political Intermediaries’, by Prof. Sujata Visaria, from the Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). She is an affiliate of the Bureau for the Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) and the Small and Medium Enterprise Initiative of Innovations for Poverty Action.
Prof. Arijit Sen, Professor of Economics at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, presented his paper titled, ‘Contests with supporters’. His research and teaching focuses on Micro & Game Theory. He engages with the practitioners in discourses on strategic behaviour, negotiations, and competitive bidding.
The workshop concluded with Prof. Tridip Ray’s paper presentation, ‘Whose Education Matters? An Analysis of Inter-Caste Marriages in India’. Prof. Tridip Ray's research areas are economic development and growth, inequality, financial development, economics of education, applied microeconomics.
The 2nd Political Economy Workshop was a success in bringing together faculty and participants from top institutions in India and abroad. The workshop focused on a few well developed and potentially influential research papers and arranged for extended discussion within a small group environment.