Kaushik Basu
Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, World Bank and Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies, Cornell University
Prof. Basu is currently (the fourth) President of the Human Development and Capabilities Association. He has held advisory posts with the ILO, the World Bank, the Reserve Bank of India and was, for several years, member of the steering committee of the Expert Group of Development Issues set up by the Swedish Government. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Exim Bank of India. Kaushik Basu has earlier been Chairman of the Department of Economics and Director of the Center for Analytic Economics at Cornell University. He is Editor of Social Choice and Welfare, and served or serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Development Economics, World Bank Economic Review and the Japanese Economic Review. 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 books include Analytical Development Economics (1997, MIT Press), Prelude to Political Economy: A Study of the Social and Political Foundations of Economics (2000, Oxford University Press) and Of People, Of Places: Sketches from an Economist’s Notebook (1994, Oxford University Press). His latest book, Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics has been published by Princeton University Press and Penguin and is being translated into Chinese, Italian and Spanish. In May 2008 he was awarded one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, by the President of India.