Arindam Nandi

Arindam Nandi is the associate director of research at the Tata Centre for Development, at the Harris School of Public Policy of the University of Chicago. He is also a visiting fellow at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, Washington DC. His primary research interests are health economics, development economics, and public health. His current research focuses on the long-term effects of early childhood nutrition and other health interventions on cognitive, educational, and labour market outcomes in low- and middle-income country settings. In collaboration with the Public Health Foundation of India, he is involved in a five-year experimental study of the impact of a physical activity based child development programme on adolescent health, cognitive, and personality development outcomes. He is jointly leading another large field study on the cost of delivering routine vaccination in seven Indian states. His recent research has evaluated the economic benefits of various health interventions and policies in India, and the political economy of gender, particularly sex-selective abortions, in India and the US. In the past, he has been a visiting scholar at the Public Health Foundation of India, Gurgaon. He has also worked with the World Bank on poverty reduction and economic management in India, and with the University of California Global Health Institute. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Riverside.

Early life nutrition and future educational outcomes: Findings from ICDS
Integrated Child Development Services – India’s flagship child nutrition programme – has recently suffered a major cut in funding. This column shows that supplementary nutrition provided under the programme positively influences long-term educational outcomes of children. The findings suggest that funding for the programme should be fully restored and efforts should be made to address its systemic inefficiencies.

