Ideas of India

In a reversal of the podcast's usual format, producer Dallas Floer interviews Shruti about the guests who appeared and the issues that were discussed on the podcast in 2022. They discuss how to get good data on India, why it's important to learn more about India, what Shruti has learned from the job market series, and much more. They also answer listener questions and discuss the all-important topic of what Shruti is binge-watching. Recorded December 12th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Dallas on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the seventh installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Shweta Banerjee about Indian currency before the arrival of the East India Company, how the company changed India's monetary system, demonetization, free banking and more. Banerjee is a Vanier Doctoral Scholar at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation provides a historical view of financial infrastructure in India from 1750 to 1947. She is interested in exploring finance as a site of contestation between early modern and modern states and financiers or bankers. Before entering her Ph.D. program, she spent several years at the World Bank working on financial inclusion, digitization and rural livelihood programs in South Asia. Recorded September 22nd, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Check out our new Ideas of India merch here, and use the promo code INDIA for 10% off! Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Shweta on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the sixth installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Mahima Vasishth about her job market paper, "Local Media Reports About Sexual Crimes and Judicial Outcomes in India." They discuss the effects of media coverage on sexual harassment cases, what factors may be driving increased coverage, whether the gender of local politicians affects case outcomes and much more. Vasishth is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include labor economics, development economics and public economics, especially the factors that shape women's economic outcomes. Recorded September 22nd, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Check out our new Ideas of India merch here, and use the promo code INDIA for 10% off! Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Mahima on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the fifth installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Khusdeep Malhotra about her dissertation, "Precarious Citizens, Excepted State: Sikh Rootedness in Kashmir After the Chittisinghpora Massacre." They discuss commonalities between Sikhs and Muslims in Kashmir, the effects of land ownership on the Sikh community, the role of women in passing on Sikh identity and much more. Malhotra received her Ph.D. from Temple University in Geography and Urban Studies in May 2022 and her research interests include conflict, displacement and minority rights in South Asia. Recorded September 22nd, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the fourth installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Anoop Jain about his paper, "'Someone Should Be There To Take Care of It': A Case Study of Users' Views of Managed Shared Sanitation Facilities in Jharkhand, India." They discuss whether toilets should be private or shared, who should build and maintain shared toilets, the need for better infrastructure and much more. Jain is the founding director of Sanitation and Health Rights in India, an organization that fights to eliminate open defecation throughout India. He has an M.P.H. from Tulane University and received his Doctor of Public Health from UC Berkeley in 2019. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, where his research examines the combined effects of multiple deprivations faced by households on population-level health outcomes. Recorded September 7th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Anoop on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the third installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Aliz Tóth about her job market paper, "My Way and the Highway: Embedded Bureaucrats and Bargaining over Land for Infrastructure." They discuss the lack of trust between landowners and the state, the role of bureaucrats and politicians in land acquisition for infrastructure projects, differences between private- and public-sector projects, and much more. Tóth is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research examines states' problem of acquiring valuable land from landowners to build public goods. In particular, her dissertation project investigates why large-scale infrastructure projects face social opposition in India and whether the state can enforce bargains with landowners. Recorded September 7th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Aliz on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the second installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Raahil Madhok about his job market paper, "The Development-Biodiversity Tradeoff in India's Forests." They discuss the effects of different types of infrastructure projects, state capacity, the Forest Rights Act, bird-watching and much more. Madhok is a Ph.D. candidate in the Food and Resource Economics Group at the Faculty of Land and Food systems at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on environmental and development economics. Recorded September 7th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Raahil on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

This episode is the first installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Nishant Vats about his job market paper (co-authored with Pulak Ghosh), "Safety Nets, Credit and Productive Activity: Evidence from a Guaranteed Income Program for Small Entrepreneurs." Vats is a Ph.D. candidate in finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. His primary research interests are finance and development, financial intermediation and corporate finance, with a secondary interest in macroeconomics and political economy. Recorded September 8th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Nishant on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

In this episode, Shruti speaks with Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross about their new book, "Talent: How To Identify Energizers, Creatives and Winners Around the World." They discuss how to identify and attract talent, competition vs. cooperation, the necessity of failure and resilience, effects of immigration on talent and much more. Cowen is the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and faculty director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is co-author of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution and co-founder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University. Gross is a start-up investor in technology businesses including Uber, Instacart, Coinbase, GitHub and SpaceX. He co-founded Pioneer, a quantitative start-up accelerator, and was a partner at Y-Combinator and started its AI program. This conversation is also being released as a bonus episode of Cowen's biweekly podcast, Conversations with Tyler. Recorded June 29th, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Daniel on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Photo credit: Drew Bird Photo

In this episode, Shruti speaks with Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin about their new book, "How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth." They discuss the link between technological innovation and growth, the importance of global market competition, positive and negative effects of colonialism, the methodology of economic history and much more. Koyama is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University. He is interested in how historical institutions functioned and in the relationship between culture and economic performance. Rubin is a professor of economics at Chapman University. His research focuses on historical relationships between political and religious institutions and their role in economic development. Recorded July 27th, 2022 Read a full transcript of this episode enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on Twitter Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Mark on Twitter Follow Jared on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.