Sanghamitra Mukherjee

Matric Year: 2018 – Subject: DPhil Economics – Scholarship: Indira Gandhi Scholar

My research interests are in financial inclusion and sustainable agricultural development. I seek to understand the constraints that hinder the adoption and effective usage of savings and loans amongst smallholder farmers in developing economies.

My academic training is shaped by a Masters in Economics, Delhi School of Economics and a Masters in Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Keen to work on the intersectionality of sustainable development and finance, I focus on applied econometrics and development economics.

My tenure at Goldman Sachs cultivated my interest in financial markets, and also motivated me to apply my skills to the developing country context where issues of credit constraints, barriers to savings and missing insurance markets are very pertinent.

My experiences led me to appreciate that development policies do not operate in a vacuum but are fundamentally dependent on the social and institutional contexts in which they are devised. I received the Global Development Fellowship from USAID to undertake research on the “Enterprise Development Program” run by SaveAct in South Africa. I have experience as a researcher in the Economics department at U.C. Berkeley, working on randomized control trials in Kenyan maize markets. As a Project Manager at the Center for Effective Global Action, I worked with USAID in Uganda to design sustainable policies for solar waste management.

Academic Publications

Enterprise Development: A Deeper Understanding – Spring edition, 2018 of the Berkeley Public Policy Journal

Winner of the PBPPJ Prize for Outstanding Editorial Collaboration

Where Next?