Kaushik Basu is an Indian economist with a strong record in both academia and high-level policymaking.
Major Achievements
- Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India (2009–2012) during the UPA government.
- Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank (2012–2016). He was one of the few people from a developing country (and the first from India) to hold this position.
- Currently the Carl Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.
- Served as President of the International Economic Association (roughly 2017–2021).
- Founded the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics in 1992.
- Research contributions in development economics, game theory (including the well-known “Traveler’s Dilemma”), industrial organization, welfare economics, and law & economics.
- Author of several books, including An Economist in the Real World, The Republic of Beliefs, and Beyond the Invisible Hand. He edited the Oxford Companion to Economics in India
Awards and honors:
- Padma Bhushan (2008).
- Humboldt Research Award (2021).
- Fellow of the Econometric Society.
- Multiple honorary doctorates (including from IIT Bombay, University of Bath, Fordham University, and others).
He has also held various advisory roles and remains active as a public intellectual and columnist.
Personal life
He was born in 1952 in Kolkata (then Calcutta) and attended St. Xavier’s Collegiate School. He earned a B.A. (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi (1969–1972), followed by an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the same institution in 1976, under the supervision of Amartya Sen.
His father initially wanted him to study physics (and later law to join the family legal practice), but he chose economics as a compromise and eventually pursued it fully.
Kaushik Basu is married to Alaka Malwade Basu (a sociologist).