Dr Vidya Bharathi Rajkumar is an applied economist with research interests in the domains of Development Economics and Public Policy. She received her PhD in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University. At Cornell, she was a Tata-Cornell research scholar at the Tata Cornell Institute (TCI), an inter-disciplinary research group working on identifying solutions to agriculture and nutrition related problems in India. Prior to Cornell, she was a Research Associate at J-PAL India. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Madras School of Economics and a Bachelor’s degree from Stella Maris College at the University of Madras.
Dr Rajkumar’s research focuses on developmental questions in the context of India, and her research examines the complex relationships connecting male migration, women’s empowerment in agriculture, and the resultant effects on agricultural productivity. She is also interested in questions that examine the role of social and gender norms in governing women’s agency and employment in patriarchal societies.
Outside academia, Dr. Rajkumar is a trained Carnatic musician, and a former active member of the student led SPICMACAY chapter at Cornell.
Dr Rajkumar’s research focuses on developmental questions in the context of India, and her research examines the complex relationships connecting male migration, women’s empowerment in agriculture, and the resultant effects on agricultural productivity. She is also interested in questions that examine the role of social and gender norms in governing women’s agency and employment in patriarchal societies.
