Padma Desai

Padma Desai (October 12, 1931 – April 29, 2023) was an Indian-American development economist who was the Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of comparative economic systems and director of the Center for Transition Economies at Columbia University. Known for her scholarship on Soviet and Indian industrial policy, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009.

Early life Desai was born in Surat, Bombay Presidency, British India , on October 12, 1931, into a Gujarati Anavil Brahmin family. Her parents, Shanta and Kalidas, were literature professors who were educated at the University of Cambridge. At Harvard University, she was influenced by economists Alexander Gerschenkron and Robert Solow. She was a fellow of the American Association of University Women while pursuing her Ph.D. at Harvard.

Career Desai started her career at the Department of Economics, Harvard (1957–1959), after which she was associate professor of economics at Delhi School of Economics at University of Delhi, from 1959 to 1968.

Desai's research included studying the Soviet economy, specifically studying the command economies and the misallocation of resources therein. She built on the studies of economists Alexander Gerschenkron and Robert Solow, studying the decelerating growth rates in the Soviet economies, separating the contributions from technology led productivity gains and capital led growth. In her book Perestroika in Progress (1989) she studied the misallocation of resources in command economies and the resulting damages and losses across sectors. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor, by the Government of India in 2009.

Desai published her memoir, Breaking Out: An Indian Woman's American Journey in 2012. The book spoke about her journey from India to America, breaking out of an emotionally abusive marriage, and establishing herself as an economist studying many shacked economies.