Contributor : Profile
Kaivan Munshi completed his B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1986 and his Ph.D.in economics from MIT in 1995. He is currently professor of economics at Brown University. Munshi’s research career has been devoted almost exclusively to the analysis of social networks. His early research focused on social learning in the adoption of agricultural and contraceptive technology, and the identification of migrant labour market networks. His subsequent research has examined the effect of networks on education, health, and mobility, which are key determinants of growth and development. Much of this research has been situated in India, where caste is a natural social domain around which networks are organised. However, other work has been situated in diverse locales, including Kenya, Bangladesh, and the United States.
Posts by Kaivan Munshi
Community networks and the growth of private enterprise in China
China has witnessed the same degree of industrialisation in three decades as Europe did in two centuries – without the preconditions that are generally believed to be necessary for economic developm...
-
Ruochen Dai
Dilip Mookherjee
Kaivan Munshi
Xiaobo Zhang
31 August, 2018
- Articles
Community origins of industrial entrepreneurship: Theory and historical evidence from India
The transition from agriculture to trade and the subsequent transition from trade to manufacturing are key stages in the development process. In countries where a substantial manufacturing sector exis...
-
Bishnupriya Gupta
Dilip Mookherjee
Kaivan Munshi
31 March, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Why is labour mobility in India so low?
Rural-to-urban migration is surprisingly low in India, compared with other large developing countries, leaving higher paying job opportunities unexploited. This column shows that well-functioning rura...
-
Kaivan Munshi
Mark Rosenzweig
04 July, 2016
- Articles
The persistence of caste in India: An economic explanation
Despite many efforts by the government and by civic institutions, the caste system continues to have a firm hold on Indian society. This column presents an economic explanation for this persistence an...
-
Kaivan Munshi
16 July, 2012
- Articles