Editorial : Profile
Maitreesh Ghatak was educated at the Presidency College, University of Calcutta, Delhi School of Economics, and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1996. He has been Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics since 2004, having earlier taught at the University of Chicago. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Development Economics since 2009 and the Director of the research programme Economic Organization and Public Policy (EOPP) at STICERD, LSE since 2006. Earlier he was the Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies, and a Co-Editor of the Economics of Transition. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of BREAD, and a Co-Editor of Economica. He is a founder member of the research networks Theoretical Research in Development (ThReD) and Non-Profits, Governments, and Organisations (NGO). His areas of research interest are development economics, economics of contracts and organisations, and public economics. Current projects include the role of market structure in microfinance, land acquisition and compensation for displaced farmers, non-profits and social enterprise, and incentives and organisation design in public service delivery.
Posts by Maitreesh Ghatak
Introduction to e-Symposium: Estimation of poverty in India
Estimates of poverty in India put forth in two papers published earlier this year – by Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani; and Roy and van der Weide – have sparked the “Great Indian Poverty Debate 2.0...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 10 October, 2022
2021 West Bengal Assembly election: Did the Covid-19 surge matter?
In the recent Assembly elections in the state of West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress bucked an anti-incumbency headwind to secure victory. Using electoral data from 2016, 2019, and 2021, Ghata...
- Maitreesh Ghatak Pushkar Maitra
- 12 May, 2021
West Bengal’s economic performance relative to India over the last three decades
Against the backdrop of the ongoing elections in West Bengal, Maitreesh Ghatak examines how the state’s economic performance compares with that of the country as a whole, over the past three decades...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 01 May, 2021
An assessment of policy performance under the current regime
Commenting on the recent policy paper by Subramanian-Felman, Maitreesh Ghatak discusses why – looking at the same numbers – he would tend to be less generous in his grades for the performance of p...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 01 February, 2021
CPR-I4I webinar video: A new economic imagination?
Centre for Policy Research and Ideas for India jointly held a webinar on 16 September 2020, to discuss domestic demand specifically in rural India. It built on a recent I4I post by three of the speake...
- Yamini Aiyar Maitreesh Ghatak Ashok Kotwal Mekhala Krishnamurthy Bharat Ramaswami
- 30 September, 2020
What would make India’s growth sustainable?
Much of the discussion on the economic slowdown in India in recent years – as well as on the government’s measures to tackle the present economic crisis due to the Covid-19 lockdown – is focused...
- Maitreesh Ghatak Ashok Kotwal Bharat Ramaswami
- 14 August, 2020
What lies behind this year's economics Nobel
In this post, Maitreesh Ghatak discusses how randomised controlled trials – the use of which was pioneered by this year’s economics Nobel Laureates, Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer – have been succe...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 25 October, 2019
NYAY e-Symposium: Not long-term solution to poverty but useful ‘first-aid’
Maitreesh Ghatak (Professor of Economics, London School of Economics) contends that a cash transfer, as envisaged by NYAY, will provide some relief and a safety net to the poor living on the margins o...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 02 May, 2019
Can Rahul Gandhi’s minimum income guarantee proposal work?
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has promised a minimum income guarantee scheme for the poor if the party is voted to power in the upcoming elections. Discussing the proposal and associated concerns, P...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 07 February, 2019
The big bank theory
The Indian banking system is saddled with non-performing and stressed assets, which currently constitute about a quarter of all assets. In this post, Maitreesh Ghatak argues that while there are valid...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 11 May, 2018
Union Budget 2018: Unpleasant arithmetic and the art of the possible
In this article, Maitreesh Ghatak contends that while the Union Budget 2018-19 deserves some praise for signalling priorities given the constraints, it disappoints in terms of its vision of reforms.
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 13 February, 2018
Why 'free' speech is not always 'costless'
A recent CBI raid at the premises of the owners of NDTV has sparked off yet another round of debates about freedom of the media, the spectre of authoritarianism, and freedom of expression in India. In...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 19 July, 2017