Growth

Laura Bear

Associate Professor in Anthropology

Dr Bear is a specialist on India and ethnographies of the economy, state, time, urban ecology and globalisation. She has researched the history of the Indian railways, showing their influence on the formation of contemporary Indian nationalism, and new forms of labour among international call centre workers in Kolkata. Dr Bear has recently completed a two-year ESRC-funded research project carrying out fieldwork with boatmen, shipyard workers, hydrographers, port bureaucrats and river pilots on the river Hooghly in Kolkata. This work tracks the changes in the socio-nature, religious practices and livelihoods on the river that are emerging in the wake of liberalisation attempts, and the effects speculative processes of planning the future have on urban environments.

Katy Gardner

Professor in Anthropology

Professor Gardner’s work focuses on issues of globalisation, migration and economic change in Bangladesh and its transnational communities in the United Kingdom. Her most recent research arises from an ESRC-DfID grant, ‘Mining, Livelihoods and Social Networks in Bangladesh’, and involves the role of multinationals and competing narratives of ‘development’ and ‘un-development’ in Sylhet, where Chevron are now operating a large gas plant. The project focuses on corporate programmes of community engagement and discordant ideologies of philanthropy and development.

Chris Fuller

Professor Emeritus, Anthropology

Professor Chris Fuller specialises in India. He conducted fieldwork among the Nayars and Syrian Christians in Kerala in 1971-2, and the priests at the great temple of Madurai in Tamil Nadu in 1976-7, 1994-5 and on other visits until 2002.  During this period, Fuller also worked extensively on the anthropology of popular Hinduism.  In 2003-05, he participated in a research project that focused on middle-class company managers and software professionals in Chennai (Madras). In 2005-8, with Haripriya Narasimhan, he carried out research on Tamil Brahmans, focusing on this traditional elite's modern transformation into a migratory, urbanised, trans-national, middle-class community.   Fuller’s current scholarly work is on the history of the anthropology of India.

Jonathan Parry

Professor Emeritus, Anthropology

Professor Jonathan Parry has conducted field research in various parts of India, including a sub-Himalayan region, where he focused on the classic anthropological themes of caste, kinship, and marriage, and Banaras, where he studied the various communities of "sacred specialists". More recently, Professor Parry has been doing fieldwork on industrial workers in the central Indian steel town of Bhilai in Chhattisgarh.

Athar Hussain

Professor, Insititue of Global Affairs

Professor Athar Hussain has research interests on urbanisation trends in China, economic transformation, regional inequality in South Asia, and regional integration. He is a frequent commentator on Indian and Pakistani politics, bilateral relationships, and foreign relations.

Ruth Kattumuri

Co-Director of the India Observatory

Dr Ruth Kattumuri's research focuses on sustainable growth and inclusion, including climate change policies in India. Her recent publications examine the evolution of India’s climate change strategies, social protection policies, food security and the Public Distribution System, inclusive education, and corporate philanthropy.

Philipp Rode

Executive Director, LSE Cities

Philipp Rode is Executive Director of LSE Cities and Senior Research Fellow at LSE. As researcher and consultant he manages interdisciplinary projects comprising urban governance, transport, city planning and urban design.  The focus of his current work is on cities and climate change. He has previously researched on governing urban transport and spatial development in India and written on Mumbai’s compact urban form and transport efficiency as a model for a sustainable transport.

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

Research Associate, STICERD

Dr Bandyopadhyay is Research Associate at the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines and Senior Lecturer in Economics at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research focuses on economic growth and development, measurement of inequality and econometrics. Bandyopadhyay’s recent publications on India examine the trend of convergence clubs in incomes across Indian states and the impact of fiscal management and infrastructure on economic polarisation.

Tim Besley

School Professor of Economics and Political Science

Dr Besley is School Professor of Economics and Political. His research, which mostly has a policy focus, is in the areas of development economics, public economics and political economy. His past work on India has examined the regulation of land markets and tenancy reform, determinants of state governments’ responsiveness to food shortages and the consequences of labour regulation for industrial development

Robin Burgess

Professor of Economics and Director of the International Growth Centre

Professor Burgess' areas of research interest include development economics, public economics, political economy and labour economics. His research focuses on identifying policy and institutional reforms which are capable of delivering higher growth and lower poverty in developing countries. His current research examines the cost of international disintegration by studying the economic and trade effects of Partition on modern-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. He has previously published on the unequal effects of liberalisation, government responsiveness, social banking, poverty, and the implications of climate change in India. He has consulted extensively for the World Bank and the Indian Government

Gregory Fischer

Lecturer in Economics

Dr Fischer is Lecturer in Economics and co-director for the finance programme at the International Growth Centre. His research agenda focuses on combining economic theory, field experiments, and more traditional empirical analysis to understand how economic development works. He focuses on less developed countries, particularly development finance and how firms function. He has previously published on access to finance to promote inclusion in India.

John Sutton

Sir John Hicks Professor of Economics

Professor Sutton's research focuses on processes of globalisation, trade liberalisation, and economic transformations. His publications on India include a book on firms’ capabilities and their impact on countries’ wealth, an analysis of the auto-component supply chain in India and China, and a study on productivity and quality for computer numerically controlled machine tools produced by leading Indian manufacturers

Maitreesh Ghatak

Professor of Economics

Professor Ghatak is an applied microeconomic theorist with a focus on economic development. His research studies the micro-foundations of market and non-market institutions that govern the allocation of resources in underdeveloped countries; incentive issues in the public sector; property rights and tenancy reform; and microfinance. Ghatak’s recent work on India analyses land acquisition and compensation policies in West Bengal; continuing preference for intra-caste marriage; and welfare beneficiary attitudes toward cash and in-kind transfers. He is also the lead economist of the International Growth Centre’s India (Bihar) programme. 

Peter Howlett 

Senior Lecturer in Economic History

Dr Howlett is Senior Lecturer in Economic History and his research interests include the British economy in the First and Second World Wars, labour markets in the railway industry, economic growth and convergence, and distribution dynamics. His research on knowledge transfers includes a case study on how technical facts travel in Tamil Nadu, India.

Tirthankar Roy 

Professor of Economic History 

Professor Roy focuses on the contribution of the artisan and traditional forms of useful knowledge in the making of the modern Indian economy. He has published books on the economic history of early modern India and India’s historic role in the world economy as well as a recent paper on Indian industrialisation. Dr Roy’s work on the sources of economic change in modern India suggests a more varied outcome of colonialism and globalisation on the economy of the region than is usually considered. His ongoing work connects India with debates in global history, and involves a study of standards of living, law, guild, states, and science and technology in a comparative frame.

Daniel Paravisini 

Associate Professor of Finance

Dr Paravisini's research focuses on the incentives of agents in financial institutions, and the role of banks in the transmission and amplification of real shocks. His recent work on India examines whether religion or caste connections in the banking sector impact loan outcome.

Naila Kabeer

Professor of Gender and Development

Professor Kabeer's research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection, and citizenship. Much of her research is focused on South and South East Asia. Her publications include studies on Bangladeshi women and labour supply decision-making, the impact of social mobilisation and microfinance South Asia and social justice in relation to the MDGs.

Richard Perkins

Reader in Environmental Geography

Dr Perkins’s research interests include innovation diffusion and convergence, economic globalisation and environmental change, and environmental compliance and policy implementation. He has studied corporate environmentalism in India and published a comparative analysis of firms in three sectors—automobiles, steel, and power—of the Indian economy that are ‘greening’ in response to processes of international political engagement, market integration, and transnational social communication.

Patrick Dunleavy

Professor of Political Science and Public Policy

Professor Dunleavy’s research interests include the development of public sector IT systems and other large-scale, modern public policy systems; analyses of public sector productivity, citizen redress and policy evaluation; rational choice theories of bureaucracy; the design of large-scale electoral systems; and modern political theory. He is also interested in electoral analysis and party politics, especially relating to the new concept of 'competition space'. Dr Dunleavy’s current work contrasts the electoral systems in India, the United Kingdom and the United States with proportional representation systems.

Kira Matus

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Management

Dr Matus’ area of expertise is the development and application of innovative technology to address sustainable development. This includes exploring the potential of green chemistry as a so-called leapfrog technology in India, China, and the United States. Dr Matus is also involved in research on voluntary regulation and emerging institutional arrangements that promote sustainable development, especially the role of standards and certification in the development of more sustainable, "green" products and technologies in the global supply chain.

Nicholas Stern

IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government

Professor Lord Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Institute, and Director of LSE’s India Observatory. He was appointed President of the British Academy in July 2013. Professor Lord Stern’s research and publications have focused on the economics of climate change, economic development and growth, economic theory, tax reform, public policy and the role of the state and economies in transition. His recent work on India analyses economic development in the Indian village of Palanpur and documents the growing importance and influence of the nonfarm sector in the rural economy between the early 1980s and late 2000s.

Sandra Sequeira

Lecturer in Development Economics

Dr Sequeira is a Lecturer in Development Economics and a research affiliate at STICERD. Her research applies a combination of experimental and quasi-experimental methods to four broad themes in development economics: infrastructure and growth, education, private sector development, and public service delivery.

Adnan Khan

Deputy Executive Director, International Growth Centre

Adnan Khan is Deputy Executive Director and Research network Director of the IGC. His research interests lie in the areas of public economics and political economy. Khan’s is involved in an IGC research project to assess the role of wages, incentives, and audit on tax inspectors’ behaviour in Punjab, Pakistan.

Tomila Lankina

Associate Professor in International Relations

Dr Lankina’s current research focuses on the historical influences on sub-national democracy and authoritarianism in India and Russia. In particular, Dr Lankina explores the imperial and colonial human capital legacies and their developmental and democracy effects in these settings by analysing sub-national data that she has gathered. She has also recently published on the impact of Christian missionaries on India’s democratic development, finding that Christian missions operating throughout India influenced post-colonial democracy by promoting education, particularly female literacy.

Mary Logan

Visiting Senior Fellow

Dr Logan's research focuses on organisational change, empowerment, and organisational identity issues. She has consulted in both the public and private sectors on issues surrounding organisational change and outsourcing.

Harry Barkema

Professor of Management and Chair, Research Committee

Professor Barkema is the founding Director of the Innovation Co-Creation Lab, which explores how to design innovative teams, innovation communities around websites, science parks and corporate campuses, and successful business model innovation in close cooperation with companies.

Saul Estrin

Professor of Management

Professor Estrin's areas of research include labour and industrial economics, transition economics and economic development. He was formerly Adecco Professor of Business and Society at the London Business School where he was also the research director of the Centre for new and Emerging Markets, which analysed private sector development and business opportunities in emerging markets, including India. Professor Estrin’s India-specific research examined the role of informal institutions in corporate governance.

Don Slater

Associate Professor of Sociology

Dr Slater's research falls into three broad areas: the sociology of economic life (in particular, consumer culture and market society); the sociology of the internet and new media; and visual sociology (particularly photography and advertising). His new media research has focused on ethnographic approaches, particularly in the global South. He has previously conducted an ethnography of community radio and internet in rural Sri Lanka, which has been followed by a UNESCO programme of ethnographic action research with nine ICT projects in South Asia, and a two-year DfID-funded programme of comparative ethnographies of new media in India.