Sukanya Bose

Areas of Interest & Expertise

  • Applied Macroeconomics and the Indian economy
  • Public Finance
  • Fiscal Policy
  • Economics of Education
  • Economics Curriculum in School education

Biography

Sukanya works in the field of economics, education and the intersection of these two broad disciplinary areas. Prior to joining Azim Premji University, she was working as an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, where she was engaged in public policy research and training.  Sukanya is professionally trained as an economist with a PhD in Economics (2002) from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU and MA from Delhi University.  She has taught Global Finance at the MBE department, Delhi University.

Her research on education explores macro policy questions around the Right to Education and its resource requirements, the nature and extent of private markets for schooling and the role of the State, patterns of inequalities in educational expenditure across Indian states and the inter-governmental transfer mechanisms, among others. Her work on the Indian economy — inter-sectoral linkages, fiscal policies, financial sector policies — is in the broad heterodox tradition. Her latest work focusses on the relationship between social policy and macroeconomic policies, bringing the two tracts of her research (education financing and macroeconomic policy) together.

Sukanya has a long association with Eklavya, Madhya Pradesh, working on social science curriculum, which dovetailed into research and writing of textbooks on Social & Political Life and Economics at the national and state levels. She has collaborated with the RTE Forum, National Coalition for Education and other civil society organisations on rights-based entitlements.

Publications

Journal Articles 

  • Bose, S (2024). Right to Education and the Union Budget: Need for Renewed Focus, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 59, No.10, p. 14 – 17. 
  • Bose S (2020). Financing the Right to Education: Role of Fifteenth Finance Commission, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 55, No.37, p. 44 – 52. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana).
  • Bose, S, and A Sardana (2019). The draft NEP and the Question of Finances, Confluence – Indian Academy of Sciences, July (with Arvind Sardana).
  • Bose, S (2019). What Does the Right to Education Need to Achieve? Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 54, No.18. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana).
  • Bose, S (2019).  समावेशीकरण और संसाधन के सवाल, पाठशाला, वर्ष 1, अंक 2. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana).
  • Bose, S (2019.) Govind Bhattacharya, Special Category States of India, Journal of Development Policy and Practice, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 216 – 221 (Review Article) 
  • Bose, S (2018).  Universalisation of School Education Using the Public-school System is Feasible, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 53, Issue No. 44.  (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana) 
  • Bose, S (2018). Targeting Debt and Deficits in India: A Structural Macroeconometric Approach, Journal of Quantitative Economics, vol. 16(1), 87 – 119.  (with N.R. Bhanumurthy, & Parma Chakravartti).
  • Bose, S (2015). Fiscal Multipliers for India, Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, Volume 9(4), p. 379 – 401. (with N.R. Bhanumurthy)
  • Bose, S (2014). Modelling India’s External Sector: Review and Some Empirics, Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, Volume 8, Issue 4. p. 457 – 493 (with N.R. Bhanumurthy and Swayamsiddha Panda).
  • Bose, S (2014). Financial Literacy in Rural Banking: Proposal for an Alternative Approach, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIX, No.26 & 27, June 28, pp. 80 – 85. (with Arvind Sardana).
  • Bose, S (2013).  Teaching Poverty: A poverty of perspective, International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education (Inderscience), Special issue on Economics Education in India: Past, Present and Future, Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 371 – 386. 
  • Bose, S (2012). Inflation: Sources, Challenges and Policy Options, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII, No.3, pp. 27 – 30.
  • Bose, S (2012). Method versus Meaning: Economics Teaching at the Higher Secondary Level, Contemporary Education Dialogue (Sage), Vol. 9, No.1, pp.  5 – 37.
  • Bose, S (2008). Teaching Economics in Schools (with Arvind Sardana), Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIII, No.32, pp.54 –60.
  • Bose, S (2006). Japanese Economic Recovery and the Macroeconomic Policy Mix, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.XLI, No.32, pp. 3535 – 3543. 

Working Papers

  • “Social Spending and Fiscal Policy in India: Towards an Alternate Macro-Fiscal Framework Integrating Human Development”, NIPFP Working Paper No. 422, January 2025. (with Saikat Banerjee)
  • “Estimating the Excess Demand for Government Schools in Delhi: How much capacity creation is necessary?”, NIPFP Working Paper No. 387, September 2022. (with Priyanta Ghosh) 
  • “Intergovernmental Fiscal transfers and Expenditure on Education in India: State level analysis, 2005 to 2020” NIPFP Working Paper No. 377, March 2022. (with Noopur and A. Sri Hari Nayudu) 
  • “Regulation and Informal Market for Schools in Delhi”, NIPFP Working Paper No. 340, August 2021. (with Priyanta Ghosh, Arvind Sardana and Manohar Boda), 
  • “Centre-State Spending on Elementary Education: Is it Complementary or Substitutionary?”, NIPFP Working Paper No. 320, September 2020 (with Manasi Bera and Priyanta Ghosh) 
  • “Exit at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Empirical Explorations in the Context of Elementary Schooling in Delhi”, NIPFP Working Paper No. 306, May 2020. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana) 
  • Fiscal Policy, Devolution and Indian Economy, NIPFP Working Paper No. 287, Dec. 2019 (with N R Bhanumurthy and Sakshi Satija)
  • Resource Requirements for Right to Education: Normative and the Real, NIPFP Working Paper No. 201, Jul 2017 (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana). 
  • Growth of Finance, Real Estate and Business Services: Explorations in an Inter-Sectoral Framework, NIPFP Working Paper No. 162, Feb. 2016 (with Abhishek Kumar)
  • Targeting Debt and Deficits in India: A Structural Macroeconometric Approach, NIPFP Working Paper No. 148, May 2015 (with N R Bhanumurthy and Parma Devi Adhikari)
  • Modeling India’s External Sector: Review and Some Empirics, NIPFP Working Paper No. 138, May 2014 (with N R Bhanumurthy and Swayamsiddha Panda).
  • Fiscal Multipliers for India, NIPFP Working Paper No. 125, Sep 2013 (with N R Bhanumurthy)
  • Oil Price Shock, Pass-through Policy and its Impact on India, NIPFP Working Paper No. 99, March 2012 (with N R Bhanumurthy and Surajit Das).

Book Chapters

  • “Afterword” in Dalit, Adivasi aur School, Published by Eklavya and Samavesh, Bhopal Jan.2025.
  • “Utilisation Patterns under the Major Centrally Sponsored Schemes in School Education” in State Forum 2024 — A Compendium. 26 – 27 September 2024, NIPFP, March 2025. p.43 – 57. (with (with Sri Hari Nayudu A)
  • “The financial sector in the Indian economy: Some reflections using Hyman Minsky’s lens” in Neoliberalism in the Emerging Economy of India: The Political Economy of International Trade, Investment and Finance, Byasdeb Dasgupta, Archita Ghosh, Bishakha Ghosh, (Ed.) Routledge, 2021.
  • “Inclusion and the Resource Question” in Inclusion in schools: Perspectives and Possibilities, Yukti Sharma and Haneet Gandhi (Ed.) New Delhi, Shipra Publications, 2021. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana)
  • Financialisation in contemporary capitalism: an inter-sectoral approach to trace sources of instability in finance, real estate and business services in India in The Changing Face of Imperialism: Colonialism to Contemporary Capitalism (Ed.), Sunanda Sen and Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, Routledge (with Abhishek Kumar), 2018. 
  • Oil Price Shock, Pass-through Policy and its Impact on India in Market, Regulations and Finance: Global Meltdown and the Indian Economy”(Eds) R. Khasnabis and I. Chakraborty, Springer  (with Surajit Das and N. R. Bhanumurthy), 2014
  • Subsidy Elimination With and Without a Global Price Shock: The Macroeconomics of Oil Price Policy Reform, in The Political Economy of Energy and Growth, (Ed.) Najeeb Jung, OUP, India.  (with Sudipto Mundle, and N. R. Bhanumurthy), 2014
  • Macroeconomic Policy within Cycles of International Capital Flows: The Indian Experience in External Dimension of an Emerging Economy, India: Essays in Honour of Sunanda Sen (Ed.) Byasdeb Dasgupta, Routledge, 2013.

Reports 

  • Evaluation of Higher Education Financing Agency: Third party audit Report, NIPFP, Jan 2023 (mimeo).
  • Public Spending on School Education in Bihar: The Gaps that Covid-19 Highlights (Includes analysis of union budget), National Coalition for Education. 2023 http://​ncein​dia​.org​.in/​?​p​a​g​e​_​i​d=843 (with H. Sharma)
  • Public Spending on School Education in Delhi: The Gaps that Covid-19 Highlights, National Coalition for Education. 2023. http://​ncein​dia​.org​.in/​?​p​a​g​e​_​i​d=843 (with H. Sharma)
  • RTE and the Resource Requirements: The Way Forward, 2020, NIPFP-Eklavya. (with Priyanta Ghosh and Arvind Sardana) 
  • Madhya Pradesh State MDG Report: 2014 – 15, NIPFP and UNICEF, 2016 (co-authored).
  • Dalit, Adivasi aur School, Published by Bhopal Rehabilitation, Bhopal Nov.2003. (co-authored)
  • Learning about Educational Inclusion and Exclusion in India and South Africa, India Country Report, DFID, 2003. (co-authored)

Other Publications

Making sense of the budget. Teacher Plus, May-June, 2016. https://​teacher​plus​.org/​2​0​1​6​/​2​0​1​6​/​m​a​y​-​j​u​n​e​-​2​0​1​6​/​i​n​f​o​r​m​a​t​i​o​n​/​m​a​k​i​n​g​-​s​e​n​s​e​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​b​u​dget/

Regional Rural Banks: The Past and the Present Debate, Macroscan, July, 2005. http://​www​.macroscan​.org/​f​e​t​/​j​u​l​0​5​/​f​e​t​2​0​0​7​0​5​R​R​B​_​D​e​b​a​t​e.htm

Banking FDI in Latin America: An Economic Coup, International Development Economics Associates, March 2005.  http://​www​.net​workideas​.org/​f​o​c​u​s​/​m​a​r​2​0​0​5​/​f​o​2​1​_​B​a​n​k​i​n​g​_​F​D​I.htm Reprinted  as  LATİN AMERİKA’DA BANKACILIK:İKTİSADİ BİR DARBE, MÜLKİYE, Cilt: XXX, 59 – 72, (2006).

Capital Flows to Emerging Markets, International Development Economics Associates, January 2005. Visit: http://​www​.net​workideas​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​j​a​n​2​0​0​5​/​n​e​w​s​2​9​_​I​I​F.htm

Employment Guarantee: A Distant Dream, Macroscan, July 2004 [Also posted in:   http://​www​.right​to​food​in​dia​.org/​r​t​o​w​o​r​k​/​e​g​a​_​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​.html]

US Economic Recovery and the Unemployment Drag, International Development Economics Associates, May 2004. Visit:  http://​www​.net​workideas​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​m​a​y​2​0​0​4​/​n​e​w​s​2​7​_​U​S​_​U​n​e​m​p​l​o​y​m​e​n​t.htm

Rural Credit in India in Peril, IDEAS, October 2005, University of Munich Personal RePEc Archive Paper No. 28458.

Financial Liberalization and the Agrarian Sector: India and Kenya Compared, IDEAs, December 2004, University of Munich Personal RePEc Archive Paper No. 28509.

Monetary Policy and the Credit Channel: Evidence from India, December 2001, University of Munich Personal RePEc Archive Paper No. 28486.

School Textbooks

  • Understanding Economic Development, NCERT, 2007.  (Class 10th)
  • Economics, NCERT, 2006  (Class 9th)
  • Social and Political Life –III, NCERT, 2008.  (Class 8th)
  • Social and Political Life –II, NCERT, 2007.   (Class 7th)
  • Economics for Classes 8th, 9th and 10th Andhra Pradesh/​Telangana SCERT, 2012÷13÷14.
  • Economics for Classes 9th and 10th Chhattisgarh SCERT, 2014⁄15.