The State´s Role in Development: Lessons from India

Asia Reseach Centre invites you to a guest lecture by

Sanjay Peters, IESE Business School, Barcelona:

The State´s Role in Development: Lessons from India

To What Extent Does State Intervention and Decentralized Development Contribute to Increase Economic Growth and to Ameliorate Poverty? Lessons from South India

The main objective of this seminar is to draw attention to the methodological challenges entailed in measuring progress in terms of productivity growth and poverty reduction among the most marginalized groups, and to attributing a causal explanation to economic and social outcomes. The design and application of fieldwork surveys will be discussed in detail to highlight strengths and limitations of empirical research on the subject.

The talk will be divided into two parts: The first will focus on explaining why productivity growth has been so poor in Kerala State, in South India where paradoxically the quality of life of life (measured by using the Sen Index), is the highest in the country. The second part of the discussion will be dedicated strictly to reviewing the outcomes of a specific government policy to reduce poverty among the poorest groups in the State. Strong emphasis will be placed on primary level data collection and analysis.

Sanjay Peters is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, IESE Business School, Barcelona. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge, UK. In addition to having taught economics at a graduate level at Cambridge University, he has also worked as an economic advisor to the foreign office of the UK Government, consultant to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and as an economic advisor to a number of leading multinational companies.

Currently, he is Director of the Center for Emerging Markets at IESE Business School and Visiting Professor at the Asia Research Center at Copenhagen Business School (2008-2011). His main area of specialization, and hence publications in academic journals and books are on emerging markets risks and opportunities in Asia (primarily in India and China).