Ashoka University’s Anisha Sharma recognised as IEA’s Featured Economist for October 2024

Anisha Sharma, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Ashoka University, has been recognised as the International Economics Association’s Featured Economist for October 2024. Her research focuses on labor economics, the economics of health and education, and public policy, with a particular emphasis on gender disparities across these dimensions.

One area of her work examines how individuals make human capital investment decisions, specifically the role of gendered social norms in shaping their choices. Another area explores the constraints on firms from hiring women and the socioeconomic factors limiting women’s labor supply. Her work has been supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Innovations for Poverty Action, J-PAL, and Centre for Economic Policy Research, among others. She holds a PhD in Economics, an MSc in Economics for Development, and an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, along with a BA in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

The Featured Economist initiative was introduced by renowned economist Dani Rodrik when he took over as the President of the International Economics Association. Notably, Kanika Mahajan, Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka University, was IEA’s first Featured Economist in August 2021, with her primary research interests in empirical development economics, specifically in the field of labor and gender.

Founded in 1950 as a Non-Governmental Organization, the International Economics Association was established through the Social Sciences Department of UNESCO to foster global collaboration and mutual understanding among economists from different parts of the world through the organization of scientific meetings, common research programs and by means of publications of an international character on problems of current importance.