Meet Prachi Mishra, The Woman Breathing Fresh Air Into The Rbi

[JANASENA]

Prachi Mishra is a name that should be known much more than it is in the economic circles in India. In November 2014, when 40-year-old economist Dr Prachi Mishra joined the Reserve Bank of India as Chief General Manager in the economic and policy research department, she was more than qualified for the job. Dr Mishra topped the Delhi School of Economics with a Masters degree in 1999. She then went on to Columbia University to get an MPhil and PhD in Economics. Till September 2013, she was Senior Economist, Monetary and Capital Markets for the International Monetary Fund. Dr Mishra has also served on the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Now, she is trying to introduce new perspective and fresh energy into the Reserve Bank of India, the country's central banking institution.

Dr Mishra's professional and academic achievements are extraordinary, but despite that, she says she was a disappointment to her family of medical practitioners when she chose economics, especially since she didn't even sit for the civil services examination, a regular feature in her home state of Bihar.

The high-achiever was chosen from 58 candidates who had applied for the post of specialist advisor (research) in the RBI.

 

Source: BSE Investor Group

 

In an interview to Economic Times, Dr Mishra outlines her job at the RBI, which involves crucial research. “My main job is to do research on topics of relevance to RBI that are crucial to policy-making, using state-of-the-art research practices,” Dr Mishra told ET.

During her stint abroad, Dr Mishra was awarded the IMF Award for Innovative Research in Political Economy, International Trade and Exchange Rates. She also chose to go down a different path while working on economies of developing nations. Dr Mishra chose to focus on Mexican immigrants in the US rather than the expected choice of her country of origin, India. While working on this aspect of immigration, many expected her to focus on the effects of immigration on the US economy. Instead, she chose to focus on the brain drain in Mexico caused by immigration to the US.

 

Source: prachimishra.net

 

Dr Mishra is now looking to address the clear data deficiency in the Indian banking system which is struggling with the tussle between banks and the RBI on interest rates. “For a study on transmission of monetary policy through the banking system, we weaved in a lot of micro data- besides individual bank's lending practices, we also looked at branch level business trends,” says Dr Mishra of the possibly groundbreaking but long process to find a common ground for interest rates.

At a press conference last month, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had lamented the lack of economists in India. “We have lost a generation of economists. Over time, the number of people going for higher degrees in economics has dwindled as other opportunities in the economy opened up,” Rajan said. The Indian economy needs all the help it can get, especially with the dwindling rate of the rupee and its internal crises. Economists like Dr Prachi Mishra give us hope that, with the right brains guiding it, the Indian economy can recover and prosper.

[Novak_Djokovic]

[manjunath455]

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