Wednesday, October 20th, 2021
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. EDT / 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. IST
via Zoom
We were pleased to invite you to the second webinar in the 2021-2022 Envisioning India series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy. This was a platform for dialogue and debate, and we invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.
The Envisioning India series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh, Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The second event featured Dr. Sajjid Z. Chinoy, J.P. Morgan’s Chief India Economist, discussing “India’s Economy in a Post-Pandemic World.” Dr. Poonam Gupta (Director General of NCAER) and Dr. Shankar Acharya (former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India) provided discussant remarks.
What is the nature of India’s recovery from COVID? Where are pressures most evident and what opportunities has COVID-19 thrown up? Why is inflation so sticky in the wake of ostensible slack? What role can monetary and fiscal policy play in the near term? Where will India’s growth come from in a post-pandemic world: Consumption? Investment? Exports? Public Investment? Finally, what do we know about India’s underlying growth potential, particularly investment and productivity growth? Our distinguished speaker and discussants will address these and related issues in this second talk of 2021-22 on Envisioning India.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Sajjid Z. Chinoy is J.P. Morgan’s Chief India Economist and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He served as a member of the Advisory Council to India’s 15th Finance Commission and has previously served on several RBI committees and task-forces (Offshore Rupee Markets, Secondary Market for Corporate Loans) including the RBI’s “Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework” that proposed inflation targeting in 2014. He was a consultant to the FRBM Review Committee that proposed a new fiscal anchor in India in 2016. He has been ranked by Asset Magazine as one of the best individuals in fixed income research in India for every year since 2014. Sajjid has authored several publications on the Indian economy including co-editing a book on Indian economic reform with Dr. Anne O. Krueger, former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and McKinsey & Company, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.
About the Discussants:
Dr. Poonam Gupta is the Director General of NCAER. Before joining NCAER, she was Lead Economist, Global Macro and Market Research, International Finance Corporation (IFC); and Lead Economist for India at the World Bank. Her prior appointments include the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP); Professor at Indian Council for Research on International Economics Relations (ICRIER); Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics; and, Economist at the International Monetary Fund. Her research has been published in leading scholarly journals and featured in The Economist, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. She holds a PhD in International Economics from the University of Maryland, USA and a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.
Dr. Shankar Acharya is one of India’s leading policy economists. As the longest-serving Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India (1993-2001), he was deeply involved in the economic reforms of the 1990s and served three successive governments of the Congress, the United Front and the National Democratic Alliance. He also served as Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (1997-2000), Member, Twelfth Finance Commission (2004) and Member, National Security Advisory Board (2009-2013). He was non-executive Chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank for 12 years (2006-2018), one of India’s newest and most successful private commercial banks. He also served as a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s Advisory Committee on Monetary Policy (2005-2016). Earlier, he worked in the World Bank (1971-1982 and 1991-1993), where he led the World Development Report team for 1979 and was Research Adviser to the Bank. He returned to India in 1982 as Senior Fellow, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), before joining the Government as Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance (1985-90).
Since 2001 he has been Honorary Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He has authored eleven books (mostly on Indian economic issues and policies) and numerous scholarly articles in academic journals. His eight most recent books are Essays on Macroeconomic Policy and Growth in India (2006, Oxford University Press, Delhi); Can India Grow without Bharat? (2007, Academic Foundation, Delhi); India and Global Crisis (2009, Academic Foundation, Delhi); (edited with Rakesh Mohan) India’s Economy: Performance and Challenges (2010, Oxford University Press, Delhi; paperback edition, 2011); India after the Global Crisis (2012, Orient BlackSwan, Delhi), Towards Economic Crisis (2012–14) and Beyond (2015, Academic Foundation, Delhi), India’s Economy 2015-2000 (2021, Academic Foundation, Delhi) and An Economist at Home and Abroad (Harper Collins, 2021, Delhi).
Dr Acharya did his B.A. from Oxford, graduating with First Class honours in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1967, before proceeding to Harvard University to earn his Ph.D. in Economics in 1972.
