Debayan Pakrashi

Welcome

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Economic Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (on leave) and Economic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata. After completing PhD in Economics from the School of Economics, University of Queensland, with the Dean's Award for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Theses, I joined IIT Kanpur. I also have a Masters of Arts in Economics (with thesis) from the University of Calgary, Canada and another Masters in Arts in Economics (with specialisation in world economy) from the Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

I am an applied microeconomist particularly interested in issues related to public policy and public health. My research areas are: Development, Labour, Health, Behavioural and Experimental Economics. I believe in being a change-maker and so I regularly work in the slums, rural and coastal regions, with partition refugees and other minority groups. To be specific, my research focuses on the role of peer effects and social networks in health, education, migration, technology adoption and diffusion; discrimination based on migrant status, religion and caste; child labour and child marriage; maternal and child health; women's safety and empowerment; microcredit and self-help groups; role of diet, physical activities and sleeping patterns for improved physical and psychological health; socio-economic determinants of subjective wellbeing and role of personality in decision making, etc; using both primary (RCTs, household surveys, field and audit experiments) and secondary datasets (cross-sectional as well as panel data).

For my research work, I have received the Australian Alumni Excellence Award India under Young Achiever Category from the Government of Australia, the Institute Fellowship, the PK Kelkar Class of 1979 Research Fellowship for Outstanding Young Faculty from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (a renowned Chair position) and the Prof. M. J. Manohar Rao Award 2016 awarded to young scholars under the age of 35 from The Indian Econometric Society, for research and development efforts. I also received the Mathematical Research Impact Centric Support (MATRICS) grant scheme under Quantitative Social Sciences (QSS) from SERB, 2020-23 for my ongoing public health research.