Biography

Bina Agarwal teaches part-time as Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. She has been Director and Professor, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi; President, International Society for Ecological Economics; Vice-President, International Economic Association; and  President, International Association for Feminist Economics. She has held distinguished positions at Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Michigan, Minnesota, and New York University School of Law. She has also served in an advisory capacity in several United Nations institutions and contributed to several of India’s Five Year Plans. She holds honorary doctorates from ISS, The Hague, and the University of Antwerp, Belgium; and is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy; The World Academy of Sciences; and lifetime fellow of the International Economic Association.

Bina Agarwal has published 89 papers and 12 books, and written extensively on land and property rights, agrarian change, environmental governance, institutions, farmers’ cooperation, and inequality, especially from a political economy and gender perspective. Her recent books, both from Oxford University Press are: Gender and Green Governance (2010) and Gender Challenges (2016), a three volume compendium of her selected papers, covering Agriculture, Property, and the Environment respectively. She also writes for English language dailies.

Her awards include the Edgar Graham Book Prize 1995; A.K. Coomaraswamy Book Prize 1996; Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Development Studies 2002; Ramesh Chandra award for Agricultural Economics 2005; Padma Shri from the President of India 2008; Leontief Prize 2010 for advancing the frontiers of economic thought; Order of Agricultural Merit (officer) 2017, France; Louis Malassis International Scientific Prize 2017, France; and the International Balzan Prize 2017 (Italy and Switzerland).

Website: http://www.binaagarwal.com

Recent Publications

• Agarwal Bina, Sharma Shiva Chakravarti, Roy Shamindra Nath, 2023. “Can political representation improve forest conservation? The Indian experience”, The University of Manchester, Global Development Institute, June. https://www.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/research/publications/gdi-working-papers/2023-065/
• Agarwal Bina, 2023. “Achieving Gender Equality in Access to Land and Assets: The Transformative Potential of Group Farming”, T20 Policy Brief, 8 June. https://www.orfonline.org/research/achieving-gender-equality-in-access-to-land-and-assets/
• Agarwal Bina, Anthwal Pervesh, Mahesh Malvika, 2021. “How Many and which Women Own Land in India?  Inter-gender and intra-gender gaps”, Journal of Development Studies, April.  https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2021.1887478.
• Agarwal Bina, 2021. “Livelihoods in COVID Times: Gendered perils and new pathways in India”, World Development, 134. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20304393
• Agarwal Bina, 2021. “Reflections on the less visible and less measured: Gender and covid-19 in India”, Gender and Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08912432211001299
• Agarwal Bina, Dobay Melinda, Sabates-Wheeler Rachel, 2021. “Revisiting group farming in a post-socialist economy: The case of Romania”, (co-authored) Journal of Rural Studies, 81: 148-158. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0743-0167(20)30347-8