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Pavel Chakraborty
Pavel Chakraborty is Associate Professor of Economics at the Management School, Lancaster University. His research interests broadly include the dynamics of firms in developing countries related to various issues concerning trade, labour markets, innovation, and finance.
He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Graduate Institute (IHEID), Geneva. Prior to joining Lancaster, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford and as an Assistant Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He also held short-term visiting positions at Bank of Finland, CAFRAL, Reserve Bank of India, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
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Import competition, formalisation, and role of contract workers
Given the recent expansion in the participation of developing countries in global trade, it is important to understand the role of trade in the composition of employment in these countries. Analysing the case of Indian manufacturing and Chinese imports, this article shows that import competition leads to an increase in the share of formal-sector employment – driven by greater usage of contract workers in the formal sector – and higher aggregate labour productivity.
Intellectual property rights and wage inequality
Technology has become central to most everyday activities. But will incentives for technological change – such as those induced by Covid-19 – cause deeper distortions in the global economy, especially through wage inequality? To examine this issue, this article analyses data on Indian manufacturing firms during 1990-2006, and shows that stronger incentives for innovation through intellectual property resulted in inequality across virtually the entire economy.