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Arnab K. Basu

Cornell University, USA, and IZA, Germany

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

Research interest

Behavioral economics and decisions research; emerging markets and development

Website

https://dyson.cornell.edu/faculty-research/faculty/ab362/

Past positions

Director of Graduate Studies: Field of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, USA; Professor, Department of Economics, College of William & Mary, USA (August 2010–July 2013)

Qualifications

PhD in Economics, The Johns Hopkins University, 1998

Selected publications

  • “Contract employment as a worker discipline device.” Journal of Development Economics 149 (2021) (with N. H. Chau and V. Soundararajan).

  • “Contract employment in developing countries.” In: Zimmermann K. F. (eds). Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Cham: Springer, 2021 (with N. H. Chau and V. Soundararajan).

  • “Rethinking border enforcement, permanent and circular migration.” Economic Modelling 108 (2022) (with N. H. Chau and B. Park).

  • “Offshoring to a developing nation with a dual labor market.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 102:3 (2020): 237–253 (with S. Bandopadhyay, N. H. Chau, and D. Mitra).

  • “Paying for freedom: Indentured labour and strategic default.” Economic Modelling 89 (2020): 502–511 (with P. Bose and R. Compton).

article(s)

  • Offshoring and labor markets in developing countries

    Lessons learned and questions remaining about offshoring and labor markets in developing countries

    Arnab K. BasuNancy H. Chau, September 2022
    Developing countries are often seen as unquestionable beneficiaries in the phenomenal rise of global value chains in international trade. Offshoring—the cross-border trade in intermediate goods and services which facilitate country-level specialization in subsets of production tasks—enables an early start in global trade integration even when the requisite technology and knowhow for cost-effective production from scratch to finish are not yet acquired. A growing economics literature suggests a more nuanced view, however. Policymakers should be mindful of issues related to inequality across firms and wages, labor standards, and effects of trade policy.
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