Govt shopping for new Chief Economic Advisor

The government is getting its ducks in the row for a new candidate in the Chief Economic Advisor (CEA)’s office. The present incumbent, KV Subramanian, has returned to the academia after completing three years in the North Block.

Four economists appear to be the top contenders. For the first time, two women – Poonam Gupta, Director General of NCAER (National Council for Applied Economic and Research) and a former member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Pami Dua, a Member of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and Professor at the Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics – are in the reckoning for the coveted post. Two other candidates are V Anantha Nageswaran, former part-time member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council and Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India.

If the appointment is made now, the new CEA’s first task would be to explain the Economic Survey to masses after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables the document in Parliament.

According to the NCAER website, Poonam Gupta has been Lead Economist, Global Macro and Market Research, International Finance Corporation (IFC); and Lead Economist for India at the World Bank besides her current position as DG, NCAER. Her prior appointments include as RBI Chair Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP); Professor at Indian Council for Research on International Economics Relations (ICRIER); Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics; and, Economist at the IMF. She holds a PhD in International Economics from the University of Maryland, USA and a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

According to Delhi University website, Pami Dua has formerly served as the Director at the Delhi School of Economics. She is also the Chairperson at the Research Council, and Dean of Academic Activities and Projects, Delhi University. She was the President of the Indian Econometrics Society for 2015-16. She has received a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. Her primary areas of research include business cycle analysis, macroeconomics, econometrics and forecasting. She has received international recognition in the field of macroeconomic forecasting.

V Anantha Nageswaran graduated with a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1985. He obtained a doctoral degree in Finance from the University of Massachusetts in 1994 for his work on the empirical behaviour of exchange rates. In October 2019, he was appointed as a part-time member to the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India for a period of two years.

According to his own website, Sanjeev Sanyal is the Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India. An internationally acclaimed economist and best-selling author, he spent two decades in the financial sector and was Global Strategist & Managing Director at Deutsche Bank till 2015. He was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore and a Senior Fellow of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

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