Sourabh B Paul | Humanities & Social Sciences

Sourabh B Paul

Sourabh B Paul
Associate Professor
Economics
CV Summary: 

Sourabh is an economist working on issues in development and applied macroeconomics. His research focuses on how economic changes in India affect labor markets, inequality, health, and productivity. He has studied caste-based occupational mobility, skill mismatch, and gender disparities in employment. His work on nutrition and food preferences examines dietary shifts and the puzzle of declining calorie consumption in India. He also works on the targeting of social pensions, the impact of transportation infrastructure, and the economic costs of road accidents. His recent projects use satellite data to study local living conditions. Sourabh holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of British Columbia, an M.S. in Quantitative Economics from the Indian Statistical Institute, and an M.Phil. from IGIDR. At IIT Delhi, he teaches econometrics and macroeconomics to undergraduate students, and macroeconomics, time series econometrics and forecasting to Ph.D. students. His recent research includes monetary economics, focusing on sentiment analysis of monetary policy communication using machine learning techniques.

Sourabh is looking for PhD applicants interested in macroeconomics. A good training in microfoundation and computation is desirable.

Contact Information

MS 649 A,
HUSS,
IIT Delhi
Hauz Khas
New Delhi 110016
Email:

Research Areas

Empirical development and applied macroeconomics

Academic Background

BSc, University of Calcutta
MS(QE), Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta
MPhil, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai
PhD, University of British Columbia

Publications

Selected Publications

Castes and Labor Mobility (with Hnatkovska, V. and Lahiri, A.), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April, 2012; 4(2): 274-307. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.4.2.274

Breaking the Caste Barrier: Intergenerational Mobility in India (with Hnatkovska, V. and Lahiri, A.), Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2013; 48(2):435-473. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.48.2.435

Universalisation versus targeting in maternal and child health care provisioning: evidence from India (with S. Paul and K. James), SSM - Population Health vol. 9 100502. 17 Oct. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100502

India’s calorie consumption puzzle: insights from the stochastic cost frontier analysis of calorie purchases (with Hazarika, Gautam), Empirical Economics (2020): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-020-01945-w

Caste Discrimination in Provision of Public Schools in Rural India (with Neha Bailwal), The Journal of Development Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2020.1862796

Discouraged Worker Effect and Labour Market Behaviour of Urban Married Women (with Deeksha Tayal), Asian Development Review, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 93–122. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0116110521500098

Strategic Interactions, Bargaining power and Stability of Joint Venture in an Emerging Nation (with R. Kaushik), Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10842-021-00368-2

Labour Force Participation Rate of Women in Urban India: An Age‑Cohort‑Wise Analysis (with D. Tayal), The Indian Journal of Labour Economics (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-021-00336-8

Urban infrastructure and labour force participation in India (with R. Ahalya), The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 64, 943–960 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-021-00345-7

Maternal education, health care system and child health: Evidence from India (with Sohini Paul, K. James and Ashish Gupta), Social Science & Medicine, Volume 296, March 2022, 114740, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114740

Women’s experience of post-natal care: A study from Uttarakhand, India (with A. Verma), Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 2022, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2021.2023282

Knowledge Spillovers and Productivity Growth: Role of Absorptive Capacity in the Indian Manufacturing Sector (with I. Roy), Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10842-022-00382-y

Labour Market for Young Urban Female Graduates in India (with D. Tayal), South Asia Research, Vol. 42(2): 1–19, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280221086842

Do competition improve persistence in innovation effort? Sectoral patterns and evidence from India (with R. Kaushik), Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10842-022-00380-0

Political Trust, Democratic Satisfaction and Partisanship: Explaining Leadership Approval in Indonesia in Times of Economic Hardship during the COVID-19 Crisis (with Taberez A. Neyazi and Burhanuddin Muhtadi), Asian Survey 2022, https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2022.1651118

The pursuit of simplicity: Can simplifying eligibility criteria improve social pension targeting? (with V. Asri, K. Michaelowa, and S. Panda), Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, August 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.06.003

Determinants of Economic Mobility in India (with R. Ahalya), IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science, Vol. 41, No. 1 & 2, 2022

Transition in Dietary Quality: Evidence from India (with S. Paul), British Journal of Nutrition, September 2022, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114522002847

Using Satellite Images and Deep Learning to Measure Health and Living Standards in India (with Adel Daoud, Felipe Jordán, Makkunda Sharma, Fredrik Johansson, Devdatt Dubhashi, Subhashis Banerjee). Social Indicators Research (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-023-03112-x

Village dominance and learning gaps in rural India (with N. Bailwal), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 219, 2024, Pages 52-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.12.027

Job Creation and Job Destruction in Indian Manufacturing (with D. Goswami), The Indian Economic Journal, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1177/00194662241251556

Middle Class and Development: A Study of Indian State (with R. Ahalya), Artha Vijnana VOL. LXVI NO. 1, March 2024

Road safety studies at micro, meso, and macroscopic levels: A systematic review (with P. Kumar and G. Tiwari), IATSS Research, Volume 49, Issue 1, April 2025, Pages 10-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2024.12.001

Does population composition of a village influence public school quality? Evidence from rural India (with N. Bailwal), Oxford Development Studies, May, 2025, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2025.2501551

Segment length optimization for crash frequency modelling: Evaluating power spectral segment length in safety performance assessment (with P. Kumar and G. Tiwari), Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 219, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2025.108122

Projects

Exploring risk factors of adverse maternal and child health outcomes using machine learning and other advanced data analytical approaches, (PI), funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.

The poverty-mortality linkage in India: The role of social pensions and public health care for different social groups, (PI), funded by Indo-Swiss joint Research Programme on Social Sciences.

Study on Socio-Economic Cost of Road Accidents in India (Co-PI) (DIMTS Ltd & IIT Delhi), sponsored by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India

DST Center for Policy Research (Co-PI), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India

A Machine Learning Tool to suggest career paths based on multiple psychological, physiological, geographical, financial, social, and preferential factors (under Discover & Learn Scheme of IRD 3rd call), funded by Industrial Research & Development, IIT Delhi, India

Fiscal issues and allocative efficiency in transport sectors, NCAER (co-investigator), funded by National Transport Development Policy Committee, Government of India.

Parallel imports of books and other copyrighted materials, NCAER (co-investigator), funded by Depart- ment of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India.

Food grain stocking policy in India, NCAER (co-investigator), funded by Food and Agriculture Organi- zation of the United Nations.

Teaching Areas

Development Economics, Applied Econometrics, Labour Economics, Health Economics, Discriminations

Courses

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