Ideas of India

This is the 2026 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India. I spoke with Vaibhav Rathi who is a doctoral candidate in economics at Stockholm University. We discussed his job market paper titled, "Political Influence, Bureaucratic Priorities, and Capital Accumulation in India."
We talked about bureaucratic state capacity in India, the role of bureaucrats in approving large infrastructure projects, whether politicians use their influence to distort administrative priorities, the impact of these processes on private investment and much more. 
Recorded September 15th, 2026.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:26 - Bureaucratic Priorities, Political Influence, and "Distortion without Corruption"
00:06:53 - The Queue Metaphor
00:09:03 - India's Bureaucratic State Capacity
00:14:28 - The Procedural Context for Large Investment Projects
00:17:25 - Political Alignment and Project Prioritization
00:20:35 - Measuring Bureaucratic Activity
00:25:58 - Understanding Changes in Politicians' Influence
00:32:38 - Findings of the Study
00:36:14 - Why Central-Government Projects Get Bumped in the Queue
00:39:00 - Implications for India's Political Economy
00:45:19 - Outro

This is the 2026 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India. On this episode, I spoke with Kishen Shastry who is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Judge Business School. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 2026 at the University of Cambridge where his research focus was economics of religion and informal institutions. We discussed his job market paper titled, "The Political Economy of Informal Institutions in India."
We talked about the economics of religion, the role of long standing monastic institutions in India, how they are regulated by the state, and their impact on education, structural transformation, political competition in India, and much more. 
Recorded August 25th, 2026.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:32 - Hindu Mutts and Their Relationship to Structural Transformation
00:07:33 - Understanding Mutts
00:16:25 - Mutts in the Education Marketplace
00:22:45 - Mutts and the Regulatory Regime
00:27:47 - Stitching Together the Data
00:33:03 - Mutt Autonomy and Adjustment to Market Demands
00:37:30 - The Propagation Effect of Mutts
00:40:40 - Parsing Effects
00:43:10 - Mutts' Impact on Political Competition
00:46:05 - The Intersection of Mutt's "Club Goods" and Political Influence
00:52:37 - Outro

This is the 2026 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India. On this episode, I spoke with Nisha Vernekar who is a PhD Candidate in Economics at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Her research focus is at the intersection of gender, education, labour economics and development economics. We discussed her job market paper, (coauthored with Karan Singhal) titled, "Breaking the Night Barrier: Night-shift Reforms and Women's Work in India."
We talked about the regulatory frictions in the labor market in India, in particular the gendered restrictions imposed by the Shops and Establishments act, how labor demand changes after deregulation, how it affects overall labor force participation, India's structural transformation, and much more.
Recorded August 25th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:33 - India's Labor-Market Puzzle 00:06:40 - The Roots and Rollback of India's Gendered Labor Restrictions 00:10:31 - The Chicken and the Egg: Disentangling Night-Work Restrictions and Women's Willingness to Work 00:15:21 - Formality and the Impact of Reforms and Women's Labor-Force Participation 00:18:13 - Measuring Women's Work 00:21:17 - What PLFS Data Can't Tell Us 00:25:49 - Indian Women Workers: Exotic—or Homo Economicus? 00:30:01 - Relaxing Gender Restrictions Without Significant Displacement 00:34:45 - Implications for Gender Equality 00:39:54 - Opportunities for Improvement in the Manufacturing Sector 00:43:57 - The Case for Gender-Agnostic Regulations 00:45:52 - Outro

This is the 2026 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India. We are launching our series with Aishwarya Kekre, who is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Virginia. Her research focus is at the intersection development, trade and spatial Economics. We discussed her job market paper, "Barriers to Structural Transformation: The Role of Agricultural Land Fragmentation."
We talked about the reasons for land fragmentation in India, its impact on manufacturing enterprises, on employment in both agriculture and manufacturing, profitability of small farms, how it impacts overall structural transformation, and much more. 
Recorded August 21st, 2026.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:36 - Land Fragmentation and Structural Transformation: Surprising Trends
00:08:10 - Understanding Land Fragmentation
00:15:17 - Measuring the Impact of Land Fragmentation
00:21:13 - The Effect of Declining Farm Size on Manufacturing
00:26:30 - Measuring Fragmentation
00:31:11 - The Magnitude of the Distortions
00:36:20 - Impacts on Manufacturing Employment
00:39:45 - Modeling This Problem
00:49:04 - Potential Policy Implications
00:56:07 - Outro

Today my guest is Rana Hasan who is the Director, Centre for Economic Growth at NCAER and Senior Affiliate Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Prior to this he was the Regional Lead Economist at the Asian Development Bank.
We talked about how to classify and define a city, coordination problems in urban governance, their potential as engines of growth and employment, land use regulation, and how cities are the mother of all general equilibrium problems, and much more.
Recorded July 23rd, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:23 - Thinking Differently About Cities 00:13:15 - Fixing India's Land Use Regulation and Coordination 00:23:18 - Strategies for Nurturing Urban Growth 00:33:19 - The Mother of All General-Equilibrium Problems 00:38:41 - The Potential Benefits of Devolving Power to Local Governments 00:45:49 - Making India a Global Economic Player 00:49:38 - Balancing Security for Workers and Flexibility for Firms 00:58:29 - India's Missed Growth Opportunities 01:06:05 - Hurdles to Global Integration and Opportunities for Local Empowerment 01:12:46 - Outro