Biography:

Tista Kundu, is a Post-doctoral research fellow at CSH, working in the framework of the “Challenging Inequality” (CHALLINEQ) research project. She obtained her Ph.D. in Economics from ESSEC Business School, Paris, in collaboration with laboratoire THEMA at Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France. Prior to that, she was at the University of Calcutta and Presidency University, Kolkata, wherefrom she has her Masters and M.Phil in Economics.

Her doctoral research was on Inequality of opportunity, that, unlike the conventional inequality analysis, prioritize to estimate inequality that is generated only from factors beyond individual responsibilities like sex, caste, family backgrounds etc. So far the focus of her analysis is concentrated on India, mostly exploiting the National Sample Survey database. She is also interested in issues in labor market/inter-generational mobility/educational opportunity in terms of the different tire of social hierarchy and in general, micro-development economic applications.

As teaching experience and awards, she received the ESSEC doctoral fellowship for pursuing her Ph.D. During  2017-18, she has also taught there (ESSEC) introductory as well as intermediate Microeconomics as an associate lecturer, for the BBA and MBA courses. Previously during 2010-12, she taught undergraduate economics (Microeconomics, International trade, econometrics and development economics) as a guest lecturer in Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis College, Kolkata.

Her current work at CSH aims at appraising inequality of opportunity and the efficacy of certain policies to equalize opportunity in a hierarchical social set-up, both in India & Europe. One particular interest in the Indian context, is to further analyse opportunity equalization among various social groups (castes), as well as the potency of caste-based affirmative action policies in India.