Economist Jayati Ghosh Receives Prestigious Galbraith Award for Agricultural Economics

Renowned development economist and former Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Jayati Ghosh has been named the 2023 recipient of the Galbraith Award by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). The award, announced in early March, was formally handed to her on July 25, 2023.

Ghosh is currently professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The award’s citation notes that it is being given “in recognition of breakthrough discoveries in economics and outstanding contributions to humanity through leadership, research and service.”

The awards are named after John Kenneth Galbraith, an American-Canadian economist, and seek to honour his spirit of integrating scholarship with statesmanship with achievements in research, education and public service.

“AAEAs aim with this award is to recognise scholars and leaders who, like J.K. Galbraith, possess a record of intellectual leadership with service to the nation and the world,” the AAEA Trust says.

Earlier recipients of the award include Jospeh E. Stiglitz (2004), Michael Porter, (2005), Martin Weitzman (2013) and Dani Rodrik (2019).

Last year, Ghosh was appointed to a high-level advisory board on ‘Effective Multilateralism’ established by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres.

In 2021, Ghosh was named among 20 prominent personalities appointed by the United Nations to another high-level advisory board that will provide recommendations for the UN Secretary-General to respond to socio-economic challenges in the post-COVID-19 world.

Ghosh is the recipient of several national and global honours, including the 2015 Adisheshaiah Award for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India, the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2011, and the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010, Italy.

She has authored numerous articles and over 20 books on labour, women and development economics. In her latest piece for The Wire, Ghosh had written critically of the lack of attention in the Union Budget 2023-24 to social spending and the rural poor.

(This article was originally published in The Wire on July 26, 2023)