Kaushik Basu

Professor, Cornell University; Former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, the World Bank Scholars

Kaushik is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, 2012-16, and Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian Government, 2009-2012. Basu takes over as President of the International Economic Association for a three-year term from June 2017.

A Fellow of the Econometric Society, Kaushik Basu has published widely in the areas of Development Economics, Industrial Organization, Game Theory and Welfare Economics. His two most recent books are An Economist in the Real World: The Art of Policymaking in India (MIT Press and Penguin Random House) and Beyond the Invisible Hand (Princeton University Press). The former is available in Chinese and the latter in Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, and Russian translations.Professor Basu has contributed popular articles to magazines and newspapers, such as The New York Times, Scientific American, India Today and Business Standard. He also wrote a regular column for BBC News Online. Till 2009 he was Chairman of the Department of Economics and during 2006-2009 he was Director of the Center for Analytic Economics at Cornell.

In May 2008 he was awarded one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, by the President of India. Kaushik Basu has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the London School of Economics, Harvard University, Princeton University and M.I.T.  He was Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, where in 1992 he founded the Centre for Development Economics and was its first Executive Director. He is also a founding member of the Madras School of Economics. Basu received his PhD and M.Sc from the London School of Economics and his BA (Hons) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. He has received honorary doctorates from several institutes and universities, including IIT Bombay, Fordham University, New York, and the University of Bath, U.K.