My research on economic development looks at issues of undernutrition, health status & health systems, and the condition of informal employment & enterprises in India. I work with data from large scale, nationally representative consumer expenditure surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) to study various aspects of undernutrition and health in India. These include studying the calorie consumption puzzle (as average incomes have risen, average calorie intakes have fallen); the public distribution system; changes in consumption patterns across regions, states, rural & urban areas, and across castes, classes and religions; and the impact of income inequality and public provisioning of health care on average health status across states. I have also been working with firm-level data from the Survey of Unorganized Manufacturing Enterprises conducted by the NSSO to understand the determinants and impacts of subcontracting relationships in the informal sector in India.
