Economics
My work as an economist returns to a single question: how does an emerging economy become a developed one? It is the defining economic challenge of our time for India and much of the world — and it runs through everything I study, from growth and productivity to trade, monetary policy, and the workings of the labor market.
I am a macroeconomist who works with data and dynamic models. My research spans macroeconomics, international economics, and the structural questions facing emerging economies, with a particular focus on India.
Current focus: why so many Indians — and most women — are not at work
In recent work with Aakash Dev, I ask why nearly half of working-age Indians, and roughly three out of four women, remain outside the labor force. We calibrate a joint household search model to Indian data and find that two forces, usually studied apart, compound one another.
Chance of finding a job in any four-month window
A woman's job-finding odds are roughly a third of a man's — so her opportunity cost of working is nearly double, quietly disqualifying most jobs on offer.
The interaction is the point: because the two forces reinforce each other, no single policy can close the gap. This work was the basis of my keynote at the LEO Economics Conference 2026.
Research themes
Growth & productivity
What drives productivity at the level of firms and plants — and how structural reform reshapes it.
Trade & diversification
How openness, convergence, and diversification interact in a growing economy.
Labor markets
How people move into and out of work — and why so many, especially women, never enter at all.
Money & fiscal policy
Business-cycle accounting for India, and the design of taxation in a federation.
Published & forthcoming
Labour Market Dynamics and Worker Flows in India: Impact of Covid-19 (with Aakash Dev). The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2023.
Impact of COVID-19 on Manufacturing Industries in India: Networks and Trade Dependence (with Shweta Jain). In The COVID-19 Pandemic, India and the World: Economic and Social Policy Perspectives, Routledge, 2021.
A Monetary Business Cycle Accounting Analysis of the Indian Economy (with Kshitiz Mishra). Journal of Quantitative Economics, 2021, Vol. 19, pp. 471–491.
Lives and Livelihoods: An Exit Strategy from Lockdown for India (with Soma Dey and Shweta Jain). Economic & Political Weekly, 30 May 2020, Vol. 55, Issue 22.
A Stochastic Dynamic Model of Trade and Growth: Convergence and Diversification (with Malik Shukayev). Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2012, Vol. 36(3), pp. 416–432.
A Note on a Positive Lower Bound of Capital in the Stochastic Growth Model (with Malik Shukayev). Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2008, Vol. 32(7), pp. 2137–2147.
Working papers & work in progress
Did Economic Reforms Affect Manufacturing Productivity in India? (with Shweta Jain). Working paper.
Evolution of the Distribution of Plant-Level Productivity (with Shweta Jain). Working paper.
Households, Frictions, and the Gender Gap: A Search Model of Labor Force Participation in India (with Aakash Dev). Work in progress.
Optimal Taxation in a Federation and the GST in India (with Trishita Ray Barman). Working paper.
Democracy and Growth Volatility: Exploring the Links (with Malik Shukayev).
Are Average Growth Rate and Volatility Related? (with Malik Shukayev).