V Santhakumar

Biography

While working as a civil engineer on a non-governmental initiative to plan watershed management in a village in Kerala in the late eighties, Santhakumar felt the need for a social science education. That led him to pursue Masters and Doctoral degrees in social science (IIT Chennai) followed by post-doctoral fellowships at the Wageningen Agricultural University (Netherlands) and Vanderbilt University (USA). He has been on the faculty of the Centre for Development Studies (Trivandrum) from 1996. He has used neoclassical economics (and broadly the rational choice approach) in analyzing and designing institutions and mechanisms of governance. He has also worked on the economics of conserving environment and natural resources. However, his current interest is on the inter-linkages between development and education, and the ways of shortening the `distance' between population groups so as to mitigate the `development differences' between them. He has received the research medal and the outstanding research award of the Global Development Network during the early phase of his career. Santhakumar has worked on a number of consultant assignments and/or research projects funded by the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, UNEP, UNDP, CIDA and Azim Premji Foundation in India, Cambodia, Tajikistan, China, Palestine, Laos, Bangladesh, and Indonesia and on regional and global issues. Academic Qualifications Ph.D. Social Sciences (IIT Madras) Areas of Interest Education and Development: Inter-Linkages Institutional Economics Governance Economics of Norms and Values Economics of Public and Non-Profit Organisations Teaching areas Political Economy, Development and Governance Education and Development: Inter-Linkages Behavioural and Cultural Change for Development Economics for Development Practitioners

Research Interest

Education and Development: Inter-Linkages Institutional Economics Governance Economics of Norms and Values Economics of Public and Non-Profit Organisations