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Editorial : Profile

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Dilip Mookherjee

Boston University

Dilip Mookherjee teaches economics at Boston University, where he has been serving as Director of the Institute for Economic Development since 1998. He is currently President of BREAD. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and has been recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Mahalanobis Memorial Medal of the Indian Econometric Society. His current research interests are development economics, contract and organisation theory, and the Indian economy. Current projects include effectiveness of new forms of microfinance and provision of price information to farmers; land acquisition for industrialisation and compensation of displaced farmers; effects of reforms in bankruptcy and contract enforcement laws on credit markets; land reforms; deforestation; government accountability; decentralisation; trade middlemen and effects of globalisation; and theories of education, inequality and development.

Posts by Dilip Mookherjee

Moving past the mandis: A revolution waiting to happen

A revolution in agricultural marketing organisation in Gansu province in China led to a 50% increase in potato yields within the past 15 years. In this article, Dilip Mookherjee, Professor of Economi...

Transforming Indian agriculture: The role of credit policy

Despite various policy attempts at priority sector lending to poor farmers, very little progress has been made on the ground, suggesting problems in the design and implementation of these policies. I...

Response to the Bhagwati-Panagariya rejoinder on MNREGA

In a recent article, Abreu et al. refuted the Bhagwati-Panagariya argument for phasing out MNREGA in favour of cash transfers. In this article, Abreu et al. respond to claims in a rejoinder by Bhagwa...

Financial inclusion for agricultural growth: An alternative approach

Traditional, group-based microcredit has had limited success at enabling farmers to expand the cultivation of risky but profitable cash crops. Evidence suggests that this is mainly because of its mech...

(Mis)Leading attack on MNREGA

Bhagwati and Panagariya have argued for phasing out MNREGA in favour of cash transfers. In this article, Abreu et al. contend that the argument is based on inflating the costs of the programme and de...

MNREGA: Populist leaky bucket or successful anti-poverty programme?

MNREGA – the world’s largest workfare programme - formed the backbone of the UPA government’s anti-poverty programme, and may well represent its most important legacy in the long run. This colu...

Deforestation in the Himalayas: Myths and reality

It is widely believed that the extent of deforestation in developing countries is large and growing over time, and that this has significant adverse effects on local livelihoods. This column presents...

A 'new' land reform policy in India?

The Ministry of Rural Development has recently issued a draft of a new National Land Reform Policy. In this article, Dilip Mookherjee discusses the key features, and presents his views on the pros an...

Turn Right or Left? Or is there a middle way?

Dilip Mookherjee shares his perspective on the recent Bhagwati versus Sen debate. While Sen represents the pro-state-led assistance stand and Bhagwati is seen as pro-market, what India requires is th...

The Land Acquisition Bill

Will the new Land Acquisition Bill make protests like those in Singur and Bhatta-Parsaul a thing of the past? Will it make land acquisition so expensive and difficult that the pace of industrialisati...

The Land Acquisition Bill

Will the new Land Acquisition Bill make protests like those in Singur and Bhatta-Parsaul a thing of the past? Will it make land acquisition so expensive and difficult that the pace of industrialisati...

Economic policy agenda for India in 2013

What should the priorities be for economic policymakers in India in the coming year? This column emphasises the need for greater transparency, and improved governance and regulation for reviving econo...