Updated: July 2008.

 

                                                                                                ASHWINI DESPHANDE

 

 

Personal information: Born 4 July 1965, female, married, one daughter

 

 

Employment:

 

November 2007 to present: Full Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics.

2000- 2007: Reader (Associate Professor), Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics.

1997-2000: Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics.

1996-1997: Lecturer, Ramjas College, University of Delhi

1993-1996: Research Associate, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics

1990-1993: Lecturer, Ramjas College, University of Delhi.

 

 

Education:

 

Ph.D. (1994) on "Some Aspects of the International Debt Crisis of Developing Countries" from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

 

M.A. (1987) in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Graduated with a first division (top 8% in the university).

 

B.A. (1985) in Economics (Honours) from Hindu College, University of Delhi. Graduated with a first division (top 10% in the university).

 

Research Areas: Economics of Discrimination, with a special focus on caste and gender in India, Aspects of the Chinese economy, International debt.

 

Publications:

 

Books:

 

1. “Boundaries of Clan and Color: Cross national comparisons of inter group inequality” (edited with William Darity Jr.), Routledge, London, 2003.

 

2. “Globalisation and Development: A Handbook of New Perspectives”, (edited volume),  Oxford University Press, New Delhi, September 2007.

 

3. “Capital without Borders: Challenges to Development”, (edited volume), forthcoming, Anthem Press, London.

 

4. “Discrimination: A Reader”, (edited volume), forthcoming, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

 

Manuscript in progress:

 

5. “Economics of Caste”, to be published by Permanent Black.

 

Academic journal articles/book chapters:

 

1. "Rethinking strategy for the global debt crisis", Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 30, no.21, May 27, 1995.

 

2. "The Strategic role of international credit as an instrument of trade" (with Kaushik Basu),   Japanese Economic Review, Vol. 46, No. 4, December 1995.

 

3. "Structural Adjustment in India: a critical assessment", (with Prabirjit Sarkar), Economic and Political Weekly, vol XXX, no. 49, December 9, 1995.

 

4. "Role of foreign capital in Chinese Economic Reforms: A survey", China Report, vol 32, no.2, 1996.

 

5. "The Debt overhang and the disincentive to invest", Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 52, 1997, 169-187.

 

6. “Continuing the open door policy: promoting capitalism?”, China Report, Vol. 34, No. 1, Jan- March 1998, pp 111 -118.

 

7. "Loan Pushing and triadic relations", Southern Economic Journal, Vol.  65, No. 4, April 1999, pp. 914-926.

 

8. “Recasting Economic Inequality”, Review of Social Economy, Vol. 58, No. 3, October 2000, pp. 381-399.

 

9. “Casting off servitude: assessing caste and gender disparity in India”, in Feminism and Anti racism: International Struggles for Justice, edited by Kathleen Blee and France Winddance Twine, New York University Press, New York and London, 2001, pp. 328-348.

 

10. “Tracing the divide: Intergroup disparity across countries”, (with William A. Darity, Jr), Eastern Economic Journal, Vol.26, No.1,Winter 2000, pp. 75-85.

 

11. “Does Caste still define disparity: A look at inequality in Kerala, India”, American Economic Review, papers and proceedings, Vol. 90, No.2, May 2000, pp. 322-325.

 

12. “Caste at Birth? Redefining disparity in India”, Review of Development Economics, Vol. 5 No. 1, February 2001, pp. 130-144

 

13. “Assets versus autonomy? The changing face of the gender-caste overlap in India”, Feminist Economics, 8 (2), 2002, pp. 19-35.

 

14. “Tale of two cities: Regional Inequality in China on the eve of its entry into WTO”, China Report, 38 (4), 2002, pp. 523-546.

 

15. “Gender Discrimination at the Workplace: India, China, Bangladesh”,  in Bill Kosanovich, editor, “Improving labour market opportunities and security for workers in developing countries”, ILAB Symposium Papers, Bureau of International Labour Affairs,  Washington DC, 2003, pp. 223-267.

 

16.  “Graded Inequalities: An assessment of affirmative action in India”, in Elaine Dubourdieu, editor, “Affirmative Action Policies: a trans-national analysis”, Ashgate, 2006.

 

17.    “Does Caste Still matter in Kerala?”,  South India Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. II, No.1, June 2004, pp. 7-20

 

18.    “Decomposing Inequality: Significance of caste” in Bibek Debroy and D. Shyam Babu, editors, “The Dalit Question: Reforms and Social Justice”, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Globus Books, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 33 to 52 (Chapter 3)

 

19.    “Levels and patterns of consumption expenditure among social groups in India”, in the “Dalit Development Report”, edited by Sukhadeo Thorat, forthcoming.

 

20.    “Do markets discriminate? Some insights from economic theories” , in “Reservations and the private sector: Quest for equal opportunity and growth”, editors Sukhadeo Thorat, Aryama, Prashant Negi, Rawat Publications, Delhi, 2005, pp. 59-65.

 

21.    “Affirmative Action in India and the USA”: Background Paper, World Development Report, 2006; revise and resubmit from the Review of Black Political Economy.

 

22.    “Identity and Exclusion: caste disparity under early liberalisation in India”, mimeo, 2006.

 

23.    “The Eternal Debate” in Economic and Political Weekly, June 17, 2006.

 

24.    “Overlapping identities under liberalisation: gender and caste in India”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Volume 55, No. 4, July 2007, pp.735-760

 

25.    “ Where the path leads: the role of caste in post university employment expectations”, with Katherine Newman,  Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLII, No. 41, October 13, 2007, pp. 4133-4140.

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia entries

 

1. “Affirmative Action”, in Kaushik Basu (editor), Oxford Companion to Economics in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 5-6

 

2. “Caste” in Kaushik Basu (editor), Oxford Companion to Economics in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007, pp 48-50

 

3. “Women in the Labour Force” in    Kaushik Basu (editor), Oxford Companion to Economics in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007, pp 557-559

 

4. “The Theil Index” in William Darity, Jr. (editor)  The International Encyclopaedia of  the Social Sciences, 2^nd Edition, Thomson, forthcoming.

 

5. “Creamy layer” in William Darity, Jr. (editor)  The International Encyclopaedia of  the Social Sciences, 2^nd Edition, Thomson, forthcoming.

 

6. “Caste and Diversity in India”, in The Companion to Social Economics , editors John  Davis & Wilfred Dolfsma, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming

 

 

Other papers:

 

1. "Some aspects of international debt of developing countries" EXIM Bank Occasional Paper, 1995.

 

2. “Economic Survey 1998-99 and the external sector: myth and reality”, in The Indian Economy  1998-99: An alternative survey ,  Delhi Science Forum, Delhi, 1999.

 

3. “Employment and unemployment in Nepal”, a chapter in the UNDP study of Nepal as a part of the “Macro economics of poverty reduction” project, 2002.

 

 

Teaching experience:

 

Under graduate courses: macroeconomics, economic development and policy.

Post graduate: Economics of Discrimination, Comparative Economic Development in  historical perspective, Issues in Labour history.

 

 

Editorial experience:

 

Member, Editorial Board, Review of Social Economy from September 15, 2004.

 

With William Darity Jr., edited a special issue of the Review of Social Economy (Vol. 58, no. 3, October 2000)  on cross national comparisons of racial and ethnic inequality.

 

 

Other Written Work:

 

1. A case study of Solapur, Maharashtra entitled "Effect of the New Textile Policy on the handloom and powerloom sector" as part of the Shri Ram Travelling Fellowship, 1986.

2. Several newspaper articles for the Times of India, New Delhi and the Indian Express, New Delhi.

3. Writings on music:

 

1. “The singer and the voice: where is the music”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, No.48, November 2004 and on the Underscore Records website:  http://www.underscorerecords.com/resources/articles/ashwini_deshpande-thesinger_and_thevoice.pdf

 

2.  “Understanding the singer”, Economic and Political Weekly, 28 May 2005

 

3. “Not understanding the singer”, Economics and Political Weekly, Vol. 40, No. 22-23, 2005

 

4. Newspaper pieces on music: “The Deep Sounds of the Mughals”; “Behnon and Bhaiyon: Cibaca Geet Mala”; “New Sounds of Hindi Film Music”.

 

Awards and Scholarships:

1. Fellow of the India-China Institute, New School, New York, 2008-2010.

 

2.  EXIM Bank award for outstanding dissertation in the area of international trade and related issues for 1994.

 

3. University Grants Commission (UGC) Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) in 1989. [Simultaneously qualified the National Eligibility Test (NET) for teaching].

 

4. Other scholarships during the course of the MA programme at the Delhi School of Economics.

 

Other Research Experience:

 

Post doctoral research fellow for two years at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, July 1998- July 2000.

 

Visitor to the Institute of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, summer 2005 to work on “Migration and Differentiation: A study of the Dalit Diaspora in Canada”

 

 

Seminars and Conferences:

 

recent select presentations:

 

March 2008: Paper presentation at Duke University at a conference on “Colorism and Caste”.

 

November 2007: one of the three keynote speakers at the Rafto Symposium, Bergen, Norway.

 

September 2007: presentation on “Minorities in China”, at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi.

 

May 2007: presentation in the “Global Studies of Discrimination” conference, Princeton University.

 

August 2006: presentation on the OBC reservation controversy, India International Centre, New Delhi.

 

May 2006: presentation at a workshop on “Urban Labour Market Inequality”, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

 

June 2005: presentation at the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) conference, Washington DC.

 

August 2004: presentation at the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) conference, Oxford U.K.

 

1995 - 2004: several conferences and seminars in different parts of India and the United States, including major conferences such as the American Economic Association.

 

 

 

 

Major Research/Organisational Experience:

 

Chairperson, Annual Conference for Development and Change (an international conference aimed at young, heterodox scholars, supported by Ford Foundation, New York, for three years, starting December 2005). First conference was organised in Neemrana, India, December 2005. Second conference was organised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2006. The third was organised organised in Cape Town, South Africa, December 2007.

http://www.policyinnovations.org/calendar/ACDC

 

Fellow, India-China Institute, New School University, New York, 2008-10.

 

Visiting Fellow, Institute for Chinese Studies, Delhi.

 

One of the four principal investigators in a project on Urban Labour Market Inequality in India, initiated by Princeton University, USA and Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, recently completed.

 

One of the collaborators in an DFID funded study called “Gender-caste growth assessment” designed to bring out the interconnections between growth and gender/caste inequalities in India: recently completed.

 

Member, Expert Group on the creation of the Diversity Index (as a part of the implementation of the Sachar Committee Report on Muslims in India), Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India, September 2007.

 

Member, Consultative Group on the External Sector, Planning Commission, Government of India, September 2004.

 

Member, Consultative Group on Industry, Planning Commission, Government of India, September 2004.

 

July 2002: Deputy Director, Cambridge Advanced Program on Development Economics (CAPORDE), University of Cambridge, UK.

 

Consultant to a project on the “Diversity of Muslim Women’s Lives in India”, conducted by Zoya Hasan and Ritu Menon under the Teen Murti Memorial Library, New Delhi (2001-2002)

 

Consultant to UNDP on the “Macro economics of poverty reduction” project on the Nepal case study.  2002-2003.

 

 

Contact Information

    

Office:   Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics,  University of Delhi,

               Delhi 110 007. INDIA

 

               Telephone numbers: (+91-11) 2766 6533 –35; 2766 6703-05

               Fax: (+91-11) 2766 7159