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.

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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.

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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

Today my guest is Gaurav Chiplunkar, who is an Assistant Professor in the Global Economies and Markets group at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.

We talked about labor market frictions in India, understanding the reasons for low female labor force participation in India, the importance of information flows and networks, the role of middlemen, and much more.

Recorded July 8th, 2026.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - Examining Female Labor Force Participation in India
00:08:38 - Broad Patterns in Female Employment
00:14:15 - Barriers to Entrepreneurship for Indian Women
00:21:50 - Well-Intended Labor Policy and Unintended Consequences
00:29:20 - Female Employment After Career Breaks
00:35:52 - Female Labor Force Participation and Economic Growth
00:46:02 - The Trouble with Piecemeal Reforms
00:50:40 - Frictions in the Job Market
00:57:04 - Rivalry, Information Flow, and the Nerd Effect
01:05:11 - Challenges to Placement and Retention
01:18:31 - On the Potential of Job Portals and Leapfrogging
01:27:08 - Defining the Goalposts
01:30:38 - Outro

Today my guests are my colleagues Shreyas Narla and Kadambari Shah. Shreyas is a research scholar and Kadambari is a research associate at the Mercatus Center with the India program. We talked about completing five years of the 1991 Project, how it started, it's scope, the oral histories of the reformers in 1991, papers, essays, fellowships and much more.

Recorded July 10th, 2026.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:44 - The Origin Story

00:11:07 - Launching the Oral Histories Initiative

00:20:47 -Documentation and Memory

00:37:47 - Building the Repository

00:46:18 - The 1991 Project Website

00:58:11 - Walking with Giants

01:06:45 - Where are all the Women?

01:11:27 - Making Economic Reforms 'Sexy' Again

01:22:43 - The Importance of Intergenerational Interaction

01:34:33 - Incubating New Talent

01:41:39 - Gratitude and Acknowledgments

01:53:19 - Outro

Today my guest is M.R. Madhavan, co-founder and president of PRS Legislative Research.

We talked about the role and purpose of the Rajya Sabha, treatment of money bills in a Westminster system, how the anti-defection law and party whips have hollowed out parliamentary function, parliamentary procedure, the role of the governor, and much more.

Recorded June 24th, 2026.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:33) - The Role and Purpose of the Rajya Sabha
(00:14:46) - Money Bills, No-Confidence Motions, and Design Flaws
(00:22:47) - GST and Constitutional Design
(00:30:33) - One Country, One Tax System?
(00:35:31) - The Problem with Anti-Defection Laws and Whips
(00:43:55) - Who Will Bell the Cat?
(00:50:53) - Parliamentary Pressures: Constitutional vs. Constituent Expectations
(01:02:04) - Challenges Faced by State Legislatures
(01:15:37) - Reforming the Office of Governor
(01:27:18) - The Role of PRS in Parliamentary Functioning
(01:35:13) - Outro

Today my guest is once again Rahul Sagar, who is a Global Network Associate Professor of Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi.

We talked about his new book The Birth of Indian Liberalism, the recovery of the forgotten nineteenth-century thinker Mama Parmanand, why his Letters to an Indian Raja counts as the first work of Indian political theory, how Indian liberals had to justify building a state out of chaos rather than restraining one that already existed, their fight against the social tyranny of caste, clergy, and family, the case for binding the ruler and educating the citizenry before extending the vote, the divergence between British India and the princely states, religion as a moral resource, the roots of Hindu nationalism, and much more.

Recorded June 9th, 2026.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:02:37) - A Complete Unknown
(00:08:53) - The Historical Context of Emerging Indian Liberalism
(00:15:47) - Features of Parmanand's Liberal Project
(00:21:36) - The Princely States vs. British India
(00:27:47) - Religion and the Development of Indian Liberalism
(00:37:05) - Neither Scientific Nor Divine
(00:46:33) - What Constitutes a Work of Political Theory?
(00:51:27) - The Ethics of Parmanand's Anonymity
(01:02:50) - Outro