About

Kaivan Munshi is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge, where he specializes in the analysis of communities and their interactions with economic activity.

His recent work has examined the effects of community networks on education, health, and mobility, which are determinants of growth and development. His long-term research examines the multifaceted role that informal community institutions play in the development process, with much of that work focusing on India and its caste system.

Munshi’s current research addresses four areas: expanding the scope of caste networks from economic activity to community health; examining networks in a new context by tracing the evolution of African-American communities from emancipation through the 20th century; studying the assimilation of South Asian immigrants in the United Kingdom over multiple generations; and exploring the community origins of industrial entrepreneurship in India and China.

His research has been published in leading academic journals, and he previously served co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics and associate editor of a number of other journals. In 2016, he received the Infosys Prize for the Social Sciences for his analysis in the role of communities, such as ethnic groups and castes, in economic development.

Munshi received a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, an MS and MCP from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.