Seminar Series
The goal of the 21CIC Seminar Series is to showcase new research on the Indian economy by junior scholars across the globe. The talks fit into each of the following thematic areas of 21CIC: Global Competitiveness, Inclusive Growth and Climate Sustainability. The talks are seminar-style and held virtually. Each speaker is assigned a discussant to provide feedback on the main points of the paper.
Each year, we will invite up to 10 scholars for the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters to showcase their recent working papers on India.
These are held on Wednesdays ar 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time unless otherwise noted. Each talk will last an hour in total, including discussion and Q&A. We will record the talks, with the permission of each speaker, for wider dissemination. The schedule of upcoming talks are below.
Please contact the seminar organizers, Manaswini Rao and Sayahnika Basu, with any questions or suggestions.
Upcoming Events
| Date | Speaker / Discussant / Paper |
| Sept. 27, 2023 | Speaker: Radhika Jain, University College London Discussant: Yashna Nandan, UC San Diego Paper: "Private Hospital Behavior Under Government Insurance: Evidence from Reimbursement Changes in India" |
| Oct. 18, 2023 | Speaker: Bharti Nandwani, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research Discussant: Gaurav Chiplunkar, UVA Paper: "Female representation in school management and school quality" |
| Nov. 1, 2023 | Speaker: M.R. Sharan, University of Maryland, College Park Discussant: Saad Gulzar, Princeton University Paper: "Who Becomes A Local Politician? Evidence from India" |
| Dec. 6, 2023 | Speaker: Raahil Madhok, University of Minnesota Discussant: Francisco Costa, University of Delaware Paper: "Internal Migration and the Re-organization of Agriculture" |
| Jan. 24, 2024 | Speaker: Yusuf Neggers, University of Michigan Paper: "Updating the State: Does Easier Access to Program Information Improve Bureaucrat Performance?" |
| Feb. 14, 2024 | Speaker: Rajat Kochhar, University of Chicago Discussant: TBD Paper: TBD |
| March 13, 2024 | Speaker: Shilpa Aggarwal, ISB Discussant: TBD Paper: TBD |
| April 3, 2024 | Speaker: Sanghamitra Warrier Mukherjee, IMF Discussant: TBD Paper: TBD |
| May 1, 2024 | Speaker: Madeline McKelway, Dartmouth College Discussant: TBD Paper: TBD |
| June 5, 2024 | Speaker: Anand Chopra, IIT Kanpur Discussant: TBD Paper: TBD |
Speaker Bios
Fall 2023 Speakers
Radhika Jain is an assistant professor of Health Economics at University College London (UCL), an affiliate of the UCL Centre for Global Health Economics, and an invited researcher at J-PAL South Asia. She completed her doctorate in Global Health and Economics at the Department of Global Health at Harvard University in May 2019, a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2014, the Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Stanford University in 2022, and a doctoral fellowship at the Center for Global Development in 2018. She is a health economist working on health policy in lower-income countries, particularly India. Her research focuses on healthcare markets and the role of the private sector, socioeconomic and gender inequality in health, and health policy design.
Bharti Nandwani is an assistant professor of Economics at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai since June 2018. She completed her Ph.D. in economics from Shiv Nadar University, India in 2018. Her research interests lie in the areas of political economy and economics of education. Her work in the political economy area so far has explored the extent of local community participation amongst Scheduled Tribes (STs) and the effectiveness of welfare policies introduced for STs. Within the economics of the education field, she has explored the implications of different funding sources and the management of schools for education provision in India.
Mamidipudi Ramakrishna Sharan is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research centers around questions in development economics and political economy. He has worked as a researcher and policy economist, with research organizations, state governments and the central government in India. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in May 2020. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center For Global Development. His research focuses on inequality in socially diverse settings and how institutional and technological innovations could empower marginalized groups.
Raahil Madhok is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. He is an environmental economist with research themes spanning development, agriculture, and political economy. His work studies how economic activity and institutions shape the environment. He completed his Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of British Columbia, and a B.A. from McGill University. He was previously an EPoD fellow at Harvard and a Research Associate at J-PAL South Asia.