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Biography

Personal Details:

Somdeep Chatterjee is an applied microeconomist by training. His research interests are in the fields of empirical issues in development economics with particular focus on the economics of education, labor, health, gender and human capital in general. Other than these, he takes keen interest in topics in political economy of development such as public policy implementation, electoral behavior as well as behavioral economics perspectives on public institution efficacies. He has experience of teaching courses on Indian Economy, Managerial Economics, Behavioral Economics, Applied Econometrics as well as Economics of Human Capital. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Prof. M. J. Manohar Rao Award for Young Economists given out by The Indian Econometric Society. He is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES) at Monash University and a fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). His research has appeared in journals like the Journal of the European Economic Association, Economica, World Development, Journal of Human Capital, Public Choice, Oxford Economic Papers etc.

Contact Details:

M-105, New Academic Block (NAB) Indian Institute of Management Calcutta Diamond Harbour Road Joka, Kolkata 700104 Direct: +91-33-71212028

Website:

sites.google.com/site/somdeepuh/

Academics

Academic Background:

PhD in Economics; University of Houston (TX, USA) - 2016 
MA in Economics; Jadavpur University - 2011 
BA (Hons) in Economics; Jadavpur University - 2009

Courses Taught:

IIM Calcutta

 

 1. India and the World Economy (MBA - core) 

2. Behavioral Economics for Managers (MBA - elective) 

3. Behavioral Economics for Executives (MBA-Ex elective) 

4. Economics of Human Capital (PhD)

 5. Political Economy (PhD)

 

 IIM Lucknow 

1. Managerial Economics (MBA - core) 

2. Indian Economy (MBA - core) 

3. Behavioural Economics and Management (MBA - elective) 

4. Economics of Labor Markets and Human Capital Investments (MBA - elective) 

5. Policy Evaluation Techniques - Theory and Methods (PhD - elective) 

6. Empirical Issues in Labor and Education Economics (PhD - elective) 

 

FLAME University 

1. Development Economics (UG - Senior Level) 

2. Principles of Behavioral Economics (UG - Sophomore level) 

 

University of Houston

 1. Intermediate Microeconomics (UG - Junior level) 

2. Principles of Microeconomics (UG - Sophomore level)

Awards:

1. Prof M. J. Manohar Rao Award for Young Economists - The Indian Econometric Society (TIES) - 2023 2. Best Business Environment Elective at IIM Lucknow for the course, "Behavioral Economics & Management" - 2018, 2019, 2020

Consulting Interests:

Interested in the following areas: 

1. Impact Assessment 

2. Development Policy 

3. Behavioral Economics and Nudges 

4. Human Capital Issues: Labor, Education and Healthcare

Current Projects:

1. Navigating Health Choices Under Cognitive Constraints: Evidence from India - funded by Taiwan Ministry of Education through National Cheng Kung University Taiwan - US$ 9000 (Local PI)

Past Projects:

1. External Investigator on a School of Social Sciences (SOSS) Research Support Grant at the University of Manchester, UK (PI: Prof Katsushi Imai) - GBP 9,000 

2. Building Resilient Systems in Education - Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) - US$ 8000 (PI)

Experience

Work Experience:

Employment Details: 
 

October 2024 - present: Associate Professor, Economics Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

December 2021 - October 2024: Assistant Professor, Economics Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 

December 2016 - August 2016: Assistant Professor, Business Environment Area, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow 
 

Other Appointments 

October 2021 - November 2021: Lecturer in Development Economics, University of Manchester 

June 2016 - November 2016: Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, FLAME University 
 

Research

Journal Publications:

• Motherhood Penalty Revisited: Impacts of Maternity Leave Mandates on Nature of Employment Contracts (with Saheli Bose), Journal of Development Studies, forthcoming
• Women's Empowerment and Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from a Multidimensional Policy in India (with Prashant Poddar), Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol 72 (2), January 2024
• (En-) 'lightening' Children: Assessing the Impacts of Access to Electricity on Children's Achievement Levels (with Shiv Hastawala and Jai Kamal), Review of Development Economics, Vol 27 (4), November 2023
• Passing the Buck! - Do Individual Biases affect Measures of Confidence in Public Institutions, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol 75 (3), July 2023
• Does Increased Credibility of Elections Lead to Higher Political Competition? Evidence from India (with Mehreen Mookerjee, Manini Ojha and Sanket Roy), European Journal of Political Economy, Vol 77, March 2023
• How hard did that sting? Estimating the economic costs of locust attacks on agricultural production , Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy , Vol 44 (1), March 2022
• Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Costly Signalling: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (with Jai Kamal), Journal of Human Capital, Vol 15 (4), Winter 2021
• None of the Above: Protest Voting in the World's Largest Democracy (with Gergely Ujhelyi and Andrea Szabo), Journal of the European Economic Association , Vol 19 (3), 2021 {For a summarized blog on this research, visit the IGC page.}
• From Safe Motherhood to Cognitive Ability: Exploring Intra-Household and Inter-Generational Spillovers (with Prashant Poddar), Economica , Vol 88 (352), 2021 [An Earlier Version appeared as a Discussion Paper: GLO DP 332]
• Voting for the Underdog or Jumping on the Bandwagon? Evidence from India's Exit Poll Ban (with Jai Kamal), Public Choice, Vol 188 (3-4), 2021
• Is there Political Elite Capture in Access to Energy Sources? Evidence from Indian Households (with Debdatta Pal), World Development, Vol 140 (April), 2021
• From Better Schools to Better Nourishment: Evidence from a School Building Program in India, IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Vol 10 (1), 2020
• The Curious Case of Farmer Credit Cards: Higher Output with No Increase in Borrowing, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol 19(1), 2019. {Summarized versions of this research were featured in the Business Standard newspaper and Ideas for India portal in English and Hindi. The Editorial Page of Bengali Newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika also carried a vernacular summary.}
• Getting Girls to Schools! Assessing the Impacts of a Targeted Program on Enrollment and Academic Performance, The B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol 17(1), 2017
• The Role of the Firm in Worker Wage Dispersion: An Analysis of the Ghanaian Manufacturing Sector, IZA Journal of Labor and Development, Vol 5 (16), 2016

Conferences:

PAPERS PRESENTED 

 

• European Economic Association Summer Congress - Rotterdam, Netherlands (August 2024)
• Invited Seminar - IIT Kanpur (October 2024)
• Invited Seminar - IIM Bangalore (November 2023)
• Invited Presentation - Dept of Economics, Kalyani University (November 2023) 
   
• Invited Seminar - Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (March 2023) 
   
• Invited Presentation - BITS Hyderabad (February 2023 ) 
   
• Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society (IIT Bombay) (January 2023) 
   
• Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development (ACEGD) at ISI Delhi (December 2022) 
   
• Invited Seminar - Dept of Economics, Univ of Sussex (Nov 2022) 
   
• Invited Seminar - Dept of Economics, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan (Nov 2022) 
   
• Invited Seminar - Inclusion Economics India - August 2022 
   
• Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development (ACEGD) at ISI Delhi (December 2021) 
   
• Asian and Australasian Society of Labor Economics (AASLE) Conference (December 2021) 
   
• Invited Seminar - UNU WIDER (December 2021) 
   
• Invited Seminar - University of Groningen (May 2021) 
   
• Invited Seminar - ADRI Patna (July 2021) 
   
• Invited Seminar - CMHS at IIM Ahmedabad (December 2020) 
   
• Invited Seminar - Bhawanipur Education Society College (July 2020) 
   
• Seminar in Applied Microeconomics - Virtual Assembly and Discussion (SAMVAAD), Webinar (July 2020) 
   
• American Economic Association (AEA) Annual Meetings, San Diego, California (January 2020) 
   
• Asian And Australasian Society of Labour Economics (AASLE) Conference 2019-20, National University of Singapore (December 2019) 
   
• Invited Presentation, Society for Economic Research (SERI) 2019, IIT Kanpur (July 2019) 
   
• Invited Seminar, Dept of Economics, FLAME University, Pune (January 2019) 
   
• International Conference on Public Finance and Public Policy, Center for Training and Research in Public Finance and Policy, Kolkata (January 2019) 
   
• UGC-DSA Conference, Dept of Economics, University of Calcutta, Kolkata (December 2018) 
   
• 27th Annual Conference on Contemporary Issues in Development Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (December 2017) 
   
• Forum of Development Economics Kolkata (FDEK) Conference, Calcutta University (March 2017) 
   
• Invited Seminar, Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian 
• Institute of Technology, Kanpur (February 2017, February 2016) 
   
• Invited Seminar, Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi (February 2016) 
   
• Winter School. Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi (December 2015) 
   
• 11th Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), New Delhi (December 2015) 
   
• University of Houston Empirical Microeconomics Seminar Series, Houston (October 2015) 
   
• 25th Annual Conference on Contemporary Issues in Development Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (December 2015) 
   
• Stata Texas Empirical Microeconomics Conference - Poster Session, Federal Reserve Bank, Dallas (October 2015) 
   
• Invited Seminar at the Economic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (May 2015) 
   
• 52nd Annual Conference of the Public Choice Society in San Antonio, TX (March 2015) 
   
• University Grants Commission – Center for Advanced Studies (UGC-CAS) National Seminar at Utkal University (Bhubaneshwar, March 2011) 
   
• National Seminar on Prospects and Challenges for Rural Economic Development (Visva Bharati, Shantiniketan, March 2011) 
   
• Graduate Student Workshop, University of Houston (multiple dates) 
   
• Graduate Student Brown Bag Sessions, University of Houston (multiple dates)

Research Interests:

• Development Economics
• Economics of Education
• Labor Economics
• Political Economy

Books/Book Chapters:

• Confidence in Healthcare during Pandemics: A Developing Country Perspective (with Oindrila Dey) Flattening the Curve: Covid-19 & Grand Challenges for Global Health, Innovation, and Economy- (Chatterjee, C., Chakrabarti, A.S. and Deolalikar, A.B.) Eds, World Scientific, 2023 
   
• "Asymmetric Information, Non-cooperative Games and Impatient Agents: Modeling the Failure of Environmental Awareness Campaigns." (with Asim Karmakar) Analytical Issues in Trade, Development and Finance -(Ghosh, A.N and Karmakar, A.K) eds; Springer India, 2014 
   
• ``Role of Public Capital in Rural India: Identifying the Bottlenecks of Welfare." (with Rituparna Dey Rural Development in India: Challenges and Prospects" - (Ghosh, M and Chattopadhyay A.K) eds; Serials Publications, 2013

Articles/Cases:

Working Papers
 

• Governance Structure and Household Investment in Education: Evidence from a Recentralization Experiment in Vietnam (with David Fielding and Manhar Manchanda), CDES Working Paper - Monash University, Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability
   
• Contraceptive Usage and Fertility: What Happens when Doorstep Access Comes at a Price? (with Prashant Poddar and Shreya Mishra) 
   
• Who Benefits from Appeals to Vote? Evidence from a Get-out-the-Vote (GOTV) Campaign in India (with Manhar Manchanda)
   
• A Violent Win: How Conflict Affects Political Competition in India? (with Manhar Manchanda) 
   
• Conditionality Matters - A Samaritan's Dilemma with In-Kind Transfers Targeting Educational Attainment (with Oindrila Dey) 
• "The Effects of Political Reservations on Credit Access and Borrowing Composition: New Evidence from India" (with Chon-Kit Ao) GLO Discussion Paper No: 227, Global Labor Organization, Maastricht Marketing Government Policies through Emotional Nudges: Theory and Experimental Evidence (with Prashant Poddar, Indranil Biswas and Fuzail Ahmad) 
   
• Sweet Cash: Is Healthcare a Normal Good for Women in Developing Countries? (with Shubhangi Agrawal and Chirantan Chatterjee) 
   
• Family Planning in Mission Mode: Evidence from India's Mission Parivar Vikas (MPV) Program (with Sarthak Agarwal and Oindrila Dey) 
   
• Revisiting Gender Inequality in Healthcare: New Evidence from Eye Surgeries in India (with Chirantan Chatterjee, Anthony Vipin Das, Raja Narayanan, Shubhangi Agrawal and Puja Roy) 
   

Works in Progress (drafts under preparation) 
 

• Labor Market Discrimination Against Single Mothers: A Correspondence Study (with Ralitza Dimova and Shubham Ojha) 
   
• The Impacts of Women Empowerment Programs on Gender-based Crimes: Evidence from India's SABLA Program (with Prashant Poddar) 
   
• Estimating the efficacy of "Art-Integrated Learning" Pedagogy - Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial (with Chon-Kit Ao and Josie Chen), working title 
   
• Intergenerational Effects of Adult Literacy Interventions: Evidence from the Saakshar Bharat Programme (with Prashant Poddar) 
   

• An Empirical Investigation of the Effectiveness of Affirmative Action in Providing Housing Subsidies in Rural India (working title) 

   

Permanent Working Paper

 

• Effect of Leadership and Contract Sequence on Three-echelon Supply Chain Coordination (with Anupam Agrawal, Indranil Biswas and Rohit Gupta)