Contributor : Profile

Sarmistha Pal is a Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Surrey, Guildford (UK).  She is an applied economist working on issues pertaining to both economics and finance. Her primary research interests relate to analysing the impact of law, institutions and public policy on various economic agents (individual/household, firms/banks, community) using large datasets and natural experimental framework for identification. Her current and recent research includes work on public and private schools, regulation of doctors’ dual practice, women-friendly hospital environment and child mortality, effects of social and religious norms on public good provision, effects of old age pensions on elderly co-residency arrangements, and effects of fiscal decentralisation on political transition and local development. Her research on finance explores the role of networking on firm financing in corrupt host environment, role of various corporate governance reforms including transparency and disclosure on firm financing, firm performance and industrial accidents, and effects of land reforms on corporate investment. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), Leverhulme Trust, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and also the International Finance Corporation. She is an IZA (Germany) Research Fellow and also an external research affiliate at the Centre for Studies of the African Economies, University of Oxford. She is an editorial board member of the Journal of Development Studies.