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Ajay Sharma
Ajay Sharma is a Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Management Indore. He completed his Ph.D. from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai. His research interests include labour economics, urban and regional economics, development and public policy. His current work focuses on labour mobility- commuting and migration, spatial nature of economic development, and urbanization in Indian context. Apart from this, he has interest in strategic and theoretical aspects of capital mobility, and role of state and political competition in that context. He is currently involved in ‘Strengthen and Harmonize Research and Action on Migration in the Indian Context (SHRAMIC)’, an initiative focusing on migrant workers and supported by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Allied Trusts. He received M.A. in Economics from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, M.Phil. in Development Studies from IGIDR
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Spatial disparities in household earnings in India
The per-capita state domestic product of Haryana (India’s richest state) was 5.6 times that of Bihar (poorest state) in 2017-18, up from 3.8 in 1996-97. Differences in urbanisation levels and inability of poorer regions to realise agglomeration benefits, are cited as reasons for the lack of convergence across states. Using 2018-19 Periodic Labour Force Survey data, this article examines spatial disparities in household earnings across the country.
India on the move: The commuting worker
About 25 million workers in India commute daily for work, from rural to urban areas or vice versa, or have no fixed place of work. This column finds that rural households with at least one rural-to-urban commuting worker are better off than those with no commuting workers. It makes a case for shifting the focus of labour mobility discussions from migration to commuting.