SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Centre on the Politics of Energy Security (CEPES)

CEPES Member

Name:

Pallavi Roy

Email address:

pr16@soas.ac.uk

Thesis title:

The Political Economy of Growth: Role of the Industrial Development Corporation in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat

Year of Study:

2009-2012

PhD Research

This research addresses the institutional and political conditions underpinning the growth performance of India after liberalization. Growth across India has been very varied and driven by different factors, sectors and political/institutional arrangements.

The research draws on a case study of two high-growth Indian states, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu to identify the role of specific institutional and political structures in achieving high industrial growth. In particular, the focus is on a specific agency, the Industrial Development Corporations as a lens through which to look at different relationships between politics and institutions in these states.

PhD Publications

Forthcoming

A case study on the Indian states of Maharashtra and West Bengal to be published by Cambridge University Press in a book edited by North, Wallis, Weingast and Webb. The publication will be part of a book on the theory of Limited Access Orders that tries to explain the existence of political stability in developing countries through rents used to control violence. The framework postulates that developing countries restrict violence by distributing 'rents' or excess incomes among a 'dominant coalition'. The policy implication is a deeper understanding of the political economy than just a good governance model.

A paper written for the Agence Francaise du Developpement (AFD) on the Indian state of Gujarat. This is to form part of AFD’s research programme that looks at institutional and political configurations driving long-term sustainable growth and draws out the policy implications for developing countries and for their development partners in advanced countries.

PhD Conferences

Presented the two yet to be published papers for the World Bank and AFD at conferences .

Professional Experience: 

Associate, Business Intelligence, The Risk Advisory Group, London: November 2008 to June 2009. Responsible for advising corporate clients on investment decisions based on business, political and economic perceptions of risk, focusing on the Indian sub continent. Also responsible for conducting due diligence for various corporate clients on their business ventures in South Asia. Clients include large trans-national corporations across various sectors, namely, manufacturing, oil and gas, infrastructure and financial services. Also responsible for business development for the company in the mentioned geographical area.

Research Assistant: Summer job in 2008 as a Research Assistant with Professor Mushtaq Khan, Professor of Economics, SOAS, University of London. Working on a DFID-funded research project that attempts to identify a link between different patterns of democracy and rates of productivity growth and show how different structures of political organizations lead to differing results. My detailed area of research was to focus on the Indian states of West Bengal and Maharashtra, apart from doing background research on Thailand, Tanzania and Bangladesh.

Special Correspondent, Principal Correspondent, Businessworld (One of India’s largest circulating business weeklies belonging to ABP Limited, the largest media house in Eastern India.). Kolkata. September 2004-July 2007, 1999-2004. Key sectors covered were mining and commodities policy, steel, metal commodities market, power, automobiles, infrastructure and political developments in eastern India. All the non political sectors necessarily included coverage of relevant international developments.