Post-Doctoral Fellows : Arjun Jayadev
My name is Arjun Jayadev and I am an assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. My research focuses on the ways in which policy shifts that have occurred globally over the last three decades have impacted distributional outcomes (measured in terms of income, wealth and power) and the welfare of the poor. One project that comes out of this agenda is an investigation of the distributional consequences of a globally deregulated financial regime. In current research on India I am examining how financial reforms have changed the access to finance for various groups across several axes (urban versus rural, small landholders versus large landholders, caste groups), often by reducing access and opportunities to more vulnerable groups. In separate but related research I have examined how current anti-inflationary policies are perceived- contrary to a standard argument, the poor are significantly more in favor of combating unemployment than combating inflation relative to the rich.I am also interested in examining the causes and consequences of power in economic life and in the institutional frameworks of societies that arise from considerations of power. In some research I use ideas from classical economics and the contemporary theory of incomplete contracts to investigate the role of monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms in economic relations and to empirically assess the degree of what we call 'guard labor', or labor used primarily to sustain the distribution of property rights and claims across several countries.
I am also currently working with a lawyer's advocacy group in India in assessing the impacts of Patent law in India on pharmaceutical provisions and access to medicines.
During this post-doctoral period I hope to continue examining these issues but also to spend some time assessing various aspects of the impact of globalization on the Indian economy and evaluating the consequences of the series of reforms meant to turn it away from dirigisme to market orientation. While much has been written about the undoubted gains in terms of growth, the fundamental emphasis of my research will be on the implications for distribution in the last decade and a half.
Recent Publications:
“Differing preferences between Anti-Inflation and Anti-Unemployment Policies between the Rich and Poor”. Economic Letters, 2006, vol.91, issue 1, pages 67-71
“Guard Labor” (with Samuel Bowles). Journal of Development Economics, 2006, vol. 79, issue 2, pages 328-348.
“The Impact of Capital Account Openness on the Labor Share of Income”, Advance Access publishedonline on January 20, 2007. Cambridge Journal of Economics, doi:10.1093/cje/bel037
