Economics Articles & Research Insights
Curated research summaries, econometric evaluations, and seminal policy papers authored by renowned economists from India and around the globe.
Breaking the Twin Balance Sheet: Banking Reforms and India's Investment Cycle
An empirical investigation into India's corporate over-leverage and non-performing asset (NPA) clean-up from 2014 to 2024. The authors evaluate how the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and capital adequacy mandates repaired bank lending balance sheets to support long-term private capital expenditure.
The Capability Approach & Social Provisioning: Re-examining Public Goods in South Asia
Contrasting GDP-centric growth metrics with substantive human capabilities. The paper assesses India's public health investments, nutrition schemes (PDS & POSHAN), and primary schooling infrastructure, arguing that sustained economic expansion fundamentally depends on early-life human capital investments.
The Opportunity Atlas: Intergenerational Mobility and Childhood Neighborhood Effects
Using anonymized longitudinal tax records for over 20 million children, this landmark study demonstrates that neighborhood environments during early childhood exert powerful causal effects on adult earnings, college attendance, and incarceration rates, creating micro-geographies of economic mobility.
Targeted Cash Transfers vs. In-Kind Food Aid: Randomized Evidence from Rural India
A multi-state randomized controlled trial across rural communities in West Bengal, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu comparing direct unconditional bank transfers with subsidized grain provisioning. Explores dietary diversity, agricultural reinvestment, and female household bargaining power.
The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation
Using historic European settler mortality rates as an instrumental variable for contemporary institutions, this seminal paper proves that secure property rights and broad-based political institutions are the primary fundamental cause of long-run cross-country income differences.
Minimum Wages and Employment: The Empirical Credibility Revolution
The foundational paper that ushered in modern quasi-experimental economics. Comparing fast-food restaurants in New Jersey following an 18% minimum wage increase with neighboring Pennsylvania as a control group, the authors found no evidence that moderate wage floors reduce low-wage employment.
Capital in the 21st Century: The Dynamics of $r > g$ and Global Wealth Accumulation
Assembling three centuries of national wealth and tax data across 30 nations. The authors establish that when the private rate of return on capital ($r$) consistently exceeds the economic growth rate ($g$), inherited wealth outpaces earned income, driving extreme long-term inequality.
Strategic Games and Law: Beyond the Invisible Hand in Developing Economies
A game-theoretic framework demonstrating that legal statutes cannot alter economic behavior unless they shift the focal equilibrium of market participants. Examines bureaucratic corruption, asymmetric bribery laws, and property contracts in emerging South Asian markets.
The U-Shaped Female Labor Force Curve: Century of Gender, Careers, and Caregiving
A historical panel covering 200 years of female workforce participation. Goldin establishes the "U-shaped" curve where female labor participation first drops during agricultural-to-factory transitions before rising with white-collar education, the contraceptive pill, and service-sector growth.
The Globalization Trilemma: Sovereignty, Democracy, and Hyperglobalization
Formulates the political trilemma of the world economy: nations cannot simultaneously maintain national sovereignty, democratic politics, and hyper-global economic integration. Explores the resurgence of industrial policy, supply chain security, and strategic tariffs in the post-Washington Consensus era.
Digital Payment Rails (UPI) and Rural Credit Access in Northeast India
An empirical study on the expansion of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) micro-transactions across informal retail vendors and agricultural households in Assam. Evaluates how digital cashflow footprints reduce collateral requirements for micro-credit disbursements from rural regional banks.
Spatial Disparities & Regional Growth Convergence Across Indian States
Using dynamic panel data models over three decades of State Domestic Product (GSDP), this research analyzes sigma and beta convergence among Indian states, investigating why Southern and Western coastal hubs diverge steadily from Northern hinterland states in manufacturing density and tax revenue mobilization.
Terms-of-Trade Volatility and Sovereign Fiscal Buffers in West Africa
A structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) analysis evaluating the transmission of global gold and cocoa price fluctuations to sovereign debt yields, domestic inflation, and foreign exchange reserves in Ghana and the ECOWAS trade corridor.
The Entrepreneurial State: Public R&D and Mission-Oriented Innovation
Challenging the conventional narrative that the private sector is the sole driver of innovation. Mazzucato traces the historical development of foundational digital technologies (the internet, GPS, touchscreens, algorithms, and mRNA vaccines) back to bold, patient public investment by state research agencies.
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