皇家华人

Where did it all begin?

I grew up in India, with a few years spent in the UK and the US as well, at a time when there were huge changes in all of these countries on the political and economic fronts. My parents were also very politically aware, and living in a household where poverty, inequality, education, and politics were always being discussed meant that I wanted to be an economist fairly early on. Education and inequality, in particular, were issues that seemed to be at the forefront of everything in developing countries and became a natural area of interest for me.

Who inspired you?

Too many people to mention here, but my parents were key because of how plugged in they were to what was happening in the world around them, which helped push me towards social science. They were professors as well, so I had a front-row seat into the world of education fairly early on, including how much of a difference education can make both in individual lives as well as in society. My dad was a refugee twice as a child (once from Burma during WWII and then again during the Partition of India) 鈥� reflecting on how education changed his life path is something that I have appreciated more and more as I have grown older.

What鈥檚 the big idea? 聽

My research is in education but has two related pillars to it. First, I am interested in education related to issues of inequality 鈥� I have recently worked on why BAME students perform less well at university than their white counterparts and what can be done to resolve this issue, and I have also looked at the effects of higher tuition fees on student behaviour and outcomes. The second pillar of my research is economics education, which involves evaluating techniques and technologies for teaching economics. I examine how we can make our universities more inclusive and less subject to external and internal shocks, how to build supportive learning communities, and how to make the education we provide relevant in an ever-changing world.

What should we be reading?

I became an empirical economist after reading the works of David Card (Nobel Laureate in 2021), Alan Krueger, Orley Ashenfelter, and others. It has always been fascinating to me that careful data analysis, situated in the full context of the issue at hand, can help us identify the source of an observed problem and provide guidance on how to solve it. What I now find really interesting is how many economists who are otherwise very evidence-driven are less prone to take data onboard in making decisions on how to teach, how to assess, and other key questions in higher education. There is some fascinating work on teaching techniques that uses the insights of learning science, which everyone who teaches in a higher education setting should pay attention to. Small Teaching by James Lang and Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby are both a great place to start. Finally, in education, economics, and politics, Twitter is a great place to find detailed and carefully thought-out threads on a variety of topics. Given how hard it is to get published, we should be paying more attention to these channels. #econtwitter and #teachecon are excellent hashtags for anyone interested in economics and education to get started.

What policy changes would you like to see in your area of expertise?

In the UK, there has recently been a lot of attention on diversity in universities, both in admissions as well as in outcomes which is a very welcome development. I would like to see the research that economists and others have carried out in this area embedded into the decision-making process in all aspects of education.

What鈥檚 the big question?

Can education solve society鈥檚 biggest problems?

What鈥檚 the answer? 聽

Like your stereotypical economist, my answer has to be 鈥渋t depends鈥�! Seriously though, I think properly designed education systems and policies can go a long way in addressing a lot of problems facing us today, from climate change to poverty. However, we need to be clear that for most complex problems like inequality, we can鈥檛 expect education to do all of the heavy lifting. We need a government committed to properly designed policies to redistribute, support the most vulnerable in society, incentivize innovation and maintain a properly- functioning democracy.

Who or what gives you hope?

Answering in late summer 2022, Joe Biden has actually delivered on some of the things Democrats have campaigned! My three countries, as I like to think of them, are India, the UK and the US. Sadly, the first two just fill me with despair right now.

You鈥檝e worked extensively with the UK government to design bespoke economics courses for various departments. What, in your experience, is the role of academic economics in the policy process?聽

I think that academic economics has a lot to contribute to the policy process (and does). Many of the questions and role-specific briefs our learners had were in areas with significant economic research, but many outside the field would not know how to access or apply it. It鈥檚 a real pity as we (and others working in these areas) can inform the decision-making process in a significant way but both because this kind of impact is not often incentivized for academics and on their part, policymakers do not reach out to the sector, we often don鈥檛 manage to do so.

How can researchers communicate their ideas in a way that appeals to policymakers and civil servants?

I鈥檝e had everyone from new entrants to the civil service all the way to Ambassadors taking my courses. I designed them to equip learners with the ability to understand how to communicate with professional economists and how to query research results. Along the way, I鈥檝e learned a lot about the specific policy contexts in which the learners operate and have been challenged to think directly about how the research in a particular area can apply to the context. I think keeping these needs of policymakers in mind and a pinch of humility (not something that economists are known for) is really important to communicate in an impactful way.

How can we work to bring policymakers and academics into closer conversation with each other?

Following on from my previous point, I think it鈥檚 vital for all of us to find ways to be more open-minded and cognizant of other key stakeholders and how we can work together on the journey towards better policymaking. As academics, we have come into the field because we have an inherent interest in societal problems. Unfortunately, the way in which modern academia is set up doesn鈥檛 really incentivise putting policy impact at the centre of what we do, but keeping those early reasons for getting into this business in mind can hopefully help.

Professor (Teaching) Parama Chaudhury,聽is a Professorial Teaching Fellow at the Department of Economics, University College London (UCL). She is also the Founding Director of the .