Deepak Nayyar is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has been invited to the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the United States Library of Congress in Washington DC for 2022-23. He was Distinguished University Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, New York, from 2008 to 2012. And he was Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, from 1986 to 2011. Earlier he has taught economics at the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex, and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.
His distinguished career in academia has been interspersed with short periods in the government. He was, to start with, in the Indian Administrative Service. Later, from 1983 to 1985, he worked as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Commerce. He served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and Secretary in the Ministry of Finance from 1989 to 1991.
He was educated at St. Stephen’s College and the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Thereafter, as a Rhodes Scholar, he went on to study at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he obtained a B. Phil and a D. Phil in Economics.
Deepak Nayyar is an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. And he is a Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He is Chairman of the Sameeksha Trust, which publishes Economic and Political Weekly.
He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. He served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki from 2001 to 2008, as Vice President of the International Association of Universities, Paris, from 2004 to 2008, and as Vice Chairman of the Board of the South Centre, Geneva, from 2011 to 2014. He was on the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council in the United States from 2001 to 2007 and was Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, from 2004 to 2007.
He has received the VKRV Rao award for his contribution to research in Economics and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for his lifetime contribution to Development Studies. He has been President of the Indian Economic Association. He is also on the Editorial Board of several professional journals.
He has served as a member of many commissions, committees and boards: both national and international. He has been a member of the National Knowledge Commission in India. He has been a Member of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. He was a Director on the Boards of State Trading Corporation of India, State Bank of India, Export-Import Bank of India, Maruti Udyog, Steel Authority of India Limited, ICRA, and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
His research interests are primarily in the areas of international economics, macroeconomics, development economics and economic history. He has published papers and books on a wide range of subjects, including economic growth, macroeconomic theory, macro policies, macroeconomic stabilization, structural adjustment, trade theory, trade policies, industrialization strategies, industrial policy, economic liberalization, human development, employment, international migration, multilateral trading system, globalization, and the world economy. In addition, he has written extensively on economic development in India. His most recent work is on the remarkable economic transformation, and rise, of Asia during the past fifty years.