Dr Vegard Iversen

Vegard Iversen is a microeconomist with an anthropological streak. He holds a Phd in economics from University of Cambridge and is currently based in New Delhi where he is a visitor at Indian Statistical Institute, Planning Unit (Economics Department). Before a brief stint as Research Fellow in the International Food Policy Research Institute’s New Delhi office, he spent six years as a member of Faculty and co-Director of the MA in Development Economics at School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia. He has previously held research positions at the Agricultural University of Norway and been a Junior Programme Officer in UNDP’s New Delhi office. 

His research interests span a wide canvas, with current foci on theoretical and empirical analysis of networks and intermediaries in lower end labour markets in India and Nepal. Reflecting his interest in markets and social exclusion, he is also part of a research team using a large household panel data-set to study identity based poverty traps and inclusive growth in India. He retains an interest in experimental economics and recently completed an empirical study on proximate literacy and externalities using secondary data from India and Bangladesh. He has also carried out an extensive study of child labour migration in South-India using the worklife histories of such migrants.      

Keywords: Labour markets, networks, middlemen; discrimination and social exclusion; experimental economics.

 “Social networks, labour transactions and outcomes: A theoretical and empirical study of migrant workers and their employers in South-Asia.” Duration: 1/1-2008 – 31/12 2009. Funded by the Norwegian Research Council (w/Gaute Torsvik and Magnus Hatlebakk, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Shiva Sharma, Nepal Labour Academy and Amrita Dhillon, Warwick University)

“Youth in the urban labour market.” Duration April-2008 – June 2009. Funded by the World Bank, New Delhi.

Spring 2009: Industrial Organization (at Indian Statistical Institute).

Spring 2010: Labour Economics (at Indian Statistical Institute).

(Forthcoming): The economics of urban migration in India, monograph, Routledge.

(Forthcoming) Misfortune, misfits and what the city gave and took: the stories of South-Indian child labour migrants 1935-2005, Modern Asian Studies. (with Yashodhan Ghorpade)

(2009) Job Recruitment Networks and Migration to Cities in India, Journal of Development Studies, 45(4), 522-43 (with Kunal Sen, Arjan Verschoor and Amaresh Dubey).

(2009) Does one size fit all? An experimental test of household models in East Uganda, Discussion paper 09-04, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. (with Cecile Jackson, Bereket Kebede, Alistair Munro and Arjan Verschoor). (Under review).

(2008) Caste dominance and inclusive growth: Evidence from a Panel Data set for India, Presented at the Growth and Development Conference, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, 17-18 December 2008. (with Adriaan Kalwij, Arjan Verschoor and Amaresh Dubey).

(2008) Literacy sharing, assortative mating or what? Labour market advantages and proximate illiteracy revisited, Journal of Development Studies, 44 (6); 797-838. (with Richard Palmer-Jones). Awarded the annual Dudley Seers Memorial Prize as the best article in Journal of Development Studies in 2008. Reprinted in Kaushik Basu, Bryan Maddox and Anna Robinson-Pant (eds): Interdisciplinary approaches to literacy and development, Routledge, 2009.

(2008): Failing schools, private tutoring and development interventions: impacts on education and child labour (with Bibhas Saha and Subhra B. Saha). (Under revision).

(2007) Child Migration, Child Agency and Intergenerational Relations in Africa and South-Asia, Working Paper no. 24, Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex. (with Ann Whitehead and Iman M. Hashim)

(2006) What the signboard hides: Food, caste and employability in small South-Indian eating places, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 43 (1): 311-41. (with P. S. Raghavendra).

(2006) Private tax collection – remnant of the past or a way forward ? Evidence from Rural Uganda, Public Administration and Development, 26: 317-28. (with Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Godfrey Bahiigwa, Frank Ellis and Robert James).

(2006) High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture: Evidence from forest user groups in Nepal’s Terai, Ecological Economics, 58(1): 93-107 (with Birkka Chettry, Paul Francis, Madhu Gurung, Ghanendra Kafle, Adam Pain and Janet Seeley).

(2004) On notions of Agency, Individual Heterogeneity and the Existence, Size and Composition of a Bonded Child Labour Force, in Cullenberg, Steve and Prasanta Pattanaik (eds): Globalization, Culture and the Limits of the Market: Essays in Economics and Philosophy, Oxford University Press.

(2003) Intrahousehold inequality – A challenge for the capability approach?, Feminist Economics, 9 (2-3), pp. 93-115 (Special issue on the Work and Ideas of Amartya Sen). Reprinted in Agarwal, Bina, Jane Humphries and Ingrid Robeyns (eds): Amartya Sen’s Work and Ideas: A Gender Perspective, Routledge, London and Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India, 2005.

(2002) Autonomy in Child Labor Migrants, World Development, 30 (5), pp. 817-34.

(2001) Structural Adjustment and Soil Degradation in Tanzania - A CGE-model approach with Endogenous Soil Productivity, Agricultural Economics, 24, pp. 263-287 (with Henrik Wiig, Jens B. Aune and Solveig Glomsrod).

(1999) Tanzania’s Soil Wealth, Environment and Development Economics, 4: pp. 333-356 (with Kjell Arne Brekke and Jens B. Aune). Reprinted in Charles Perrings and Jeffrey R. Vincent (eds): Natural Resource Accounting and Economic Development: Theory and Practice, Edward Elgar, 2003.