About
Dr. Ashok Kotwal passed away in April 2022, after teaching at UBC for almost 40 years. He is missed dearly by faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To learn more about his life and career, click here.
I teach Development Economics and Understanding Globalization. My present research interests is: political economy of governance in developing countries. My focus is on development issues in India.
Ideas for India (a portal dedicated to the development and policy issues in India). http://www.ideasforindia.in/, Editor-in-Chief
Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis in Development (BREAD), Senior Fellow
Theoretical Research in Economic Development (ThRed), Associate
Teaching
Research
Major Research Areas
Analysis of organizational structures in LDCs, labour and credit markets in LDCs, Interaction between agriculture and industry, Economic reforms in India and their impact on poverty, Political economy of developmental policy-making, Social capital and rural economy, Efficiency of government delivery systems, Delivery of food subsidy in India, Determinants of educational quality.
Present Research Projects
Food Security in India: The goal is to study various aspects of food insecurity faced by the poor in India including the delivery system of food subsidy and the policy toward new agricultural technology. Co-investigators: Bharat Ramaswami (Indian Statistical Institute) and Milind Murugkar (Pragati Abhiyan). This project is funded by a SSHRC-MCRI grant ($2.5Million) on “Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Program: Understanding Integrated Compliance with International Trade and Human Rights Standards in Comparative Perspective” – for a 5 country study and I am the leader of India team. Several op-ed pieces and a journal article have already come out and a draft of one major paper is being revised. (2009-16).
The Impact of UID on Corruption: The goal is to test through a pilot survey if the unique identification scheme being rolled out in India makes an impact on local corruption in rural areas. Co-investigators: Siwan Anderson (UBC), Ashwini Kulkarni (Pragati Abhiyan) and Bharat Ramaswami (Indian Statistical Institute). The project is funded by an IDRC grant ($228,000) (2012-15) and an IGC grant of GBP 30,000 (2012-13).
Writings on India
The Perplexing Case of Gujarat (with Arka Roy Chauduri) – (link).
Growth in the Time of UPA: Myths and Reality(with Muitreesh Ghatak and Parikshit Ghosh) – (link).