Ideas of India

This is the 2026 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India. We are launching our series with Aishwarya Kekre, who is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Virginia. Her research focus is at the intersection development, trade and spatial Economics. We discussed her job market paper, "Barriers to Structural Transformation: The Role of Agricultural Land Fragmentation."
We talked about the reasons for land fragmentation in India, its impact on manufacturing enterprises, on employment in both agriculture and manufacturing, profitability of small farms, how it impacts overall structural transformation, and much more. 
Recorded August 21st, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:36 - Land Fragmentation and Structural Transformation: Surprising Trends
00:08:10 - Understanding Land Fragmentation
00:15:17 - Measuring the Impact of Land Fragmentation
00:21:13 - The Effect of Declining Farm Size on Manufacturing
00:26:30 - Measuring Fragmentation
00:31:11 - The Magnitude of the Distortions
00:36:20 - Impacts on Manufacturing Employment
00:39:45 - Modeling This Problem
00:49:04 - Potential Policy Implications
00:56:07 - Outro

Today my guest is Rana Hasan who is the Director, Centre for Economic Growth at NCAER and Senior Affiliate Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Prior to this he was the Regional Lead Economist at the Asian Development Bank.
We talked about how to classify and define a city, coordination problems in urban governance, their potential as engines of growth and employment, land use regulation, and how cities are the mother of all general equilibrium problems, and much more.
Recorded July 23rd, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:23 - Thinking Differently About Cities 00:13:15 - Fixing India's Land Use Regulation and Coordination 00:23:18 - Strategies for Nurturing Urban Growth 00:33:19 - The Mother of All General-Equilibrium Problems 00:38:41 - The Potential Benefits of Devolving Power to Local Governments 00:45:49 - Making India a Global Economic Player 00:49:38 - Balancing Security for Workers and Flexibility for Firms 00:58:29 - India's Missed Growth Opportunities 01:06:05 - Hurdles to Global Integration and Opportunities for Local Empowerment 01:12:46 - Outro

Today my guest is Gaurav Chiplunkar, who is an Assistant Professor in the Global Economies and Markets group at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.
We talked about labor market frictions in India, understanding the reasons for low female labor force participation in India, the importance of information flows and networks, the role of middlemen, and much more.
Recorded July 8th, 2026.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - Examining Female Labor Force Participation in India
00:08:38 - Broad Patterns in Female Employment
00:14:15 - Barriers to Entrepreneurship for Indian Women
00:21:50 - Well-Intended Labor Policy and Unintended Consequences
00:29:20 - Female Employment After Career Breaks
00:35:52 - Female Labor Force Participation and Economic Growth
00:46:02 - The Trouble with Piecemeal Reforms
00:50:40 - Frictions in the Job Market
00:57:04 - Rivalry, Information Flow, and the Nerd Effect
01:05:11 - Challenges to Placement and Retention
01:18:31 - On the Potential of Job Portals and Leapfrogging
01:27:08 - Defining the Goalposts
01:30:38 - Outro

Today my guests are my colleagues Shreyas Narla and Kadambari Shah. Shreyas is a research scholar and Kadambari is a research associate at the Mercatus Center with the India program. We talked about completing five years of the 1991 Project, how it started, it's scope, the oral histories of the reformers in 1991, papers, essays, fellowships and much more. 
Recorded July 10th, 2026.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:44 - The Origin Story
00:11:07 - Launching the Oral Histories Initiative
00:20:47 -Documentation and Memory
00:37:47 - Building the Repository
00:46:18 - The 1991 Project Website
00:58:11 - Walking with Giants
01:06:45 - Where are all the Women?
01:11:27 - Making Economic Reforms 'Sexy' Again
01:22:43 - The Importance of Intergenerational Interaction
01:34:33 - Incubating New Talent
01:41:39 - Gratitude and Acknowledgments
01:53:19 - Outro

Today my guest is M.R. Madhavan, co-founder and president of PRS Legislative Research.
We talked about the role and purpose of the Rajya Sabha, treatment of money bills in a Westminster system, how the anti-defection law and party whips have hollowed out parliamentary function, parliamentary procedure, the role of the governor, and much more.
Recorded June 24th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:33) - The Role and Purpose of the Rajya Sabha
(00:14:46) - Money Bills, No-Confidence Motions, and Design Flaws
(00:22:47) - GST and Constitutional Design
(00:30:33) - One Country, One Tax System?
(00:35:31) - The Problem with Anti-Defection Laws and Whips
(00:43:55) - Who Will Bell the Cat?
(00:50:53) - Parliamentary Pressures: Constitutional vs. Constituent Expectations
(01:02:04) - Challenges Faced by State Legislatures
(01:15:37) - Reforming the Office of Governor
(01:27:18) - The Role of PRS in Parliamentary Functioning
(01:35:13) - Outro