Papers by Saumen Chattopadhyay
CGHE Working Paper , 2024
Higher Education is a complex reality embedded in the diverse and layered social structure consti... more Higher Education is a complex reality embedded in the diverse and layered social structure constituted by the interplay among the economy, society, culture, polity and geography at a particular historical juncture. This Working Paper seeks to understand the salience of human capital in the functioning of a Higher Education Institution and the economic rationale behind higher education policy making. The theoretical perspective adopted is located within the sub-discipline of Economics, referred to as Economics of Education. This paper consists of three parts. In Part A, the paper seeks to analyse critically the concept of human capital and human capital theory and traces out the implications for the higher education sector. In part B, the paper seeks to examine critically the economic rationale that informs higher education reform by focusing on two concepts of efficiency, technical at the institutional and allocational or exchange at the system level. We argue that the concept of human capital remains useful to explain why public and private funded institutions have failed to deliver quality education in the context of India. In Part C, we make an attempt to unravel the rationale behind Indian higher education reform as mooted in the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). This paper argues why the ongoing higher education reform in India based on the NEP may not yield the desired results as the ground reality that exists in Indian higher education defies the underlying assumptions of the policy makers.
The Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) is an international research centre focused on high... more The Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) is an international research centre focused on higher education and its future development. Our research aims to inform and improve higher education policy and practice.
India studies in business and economics, 2023
Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 18, 2012
India studies in business and economics, 2022
Financing of Higher Education, 2023
Global Higher Education During and Beyond COVID-19, 2022
India Studies in Business and Economics, 2019
It looks at the series of higher education reforms which have been mooted and implemented since t... more It looks at the series of higher education reforms which have been mooted and implemented since the beginning of the liberalization phase in India. It unravels the rationality behind the reform measures and traces its evolution over the last two and half decades. It then questions whether the rationale of promoting market in higher education, changing governance of public institutions and the increased role of the private sector based on the concept of efficiency are tenable or not in the context of higher education in a developing country like India.
South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance
This article identifies, based on reported trade data between India and its 19 trading partners, ... more This article identifies, based on reported trade data between India and its 19 trading partners, the major commodities exhibiting mis-invoicing during 2000–2018, the extent of mis-invoicing, major trade partners and the associated ports of trade in India. The computed differences in the trade values are too large to be explained by accounting or classification errors, presenting strong evidence of mis-invoicing; however, only a small percentage of commodities account for bulk of mis-invoicing consistently over the years. There is also evidence of the same commodities exhibiting under-invoicing (UI) in trade with some countries and over-invoicing (OI) in trade with others. The tariff rates seem to influence the type of import mis-invoicing—OI being mainly in commodities with higher tariff and UI in commodities with lower tariff. The article contributes to the existing literature by identifying the specific commodities with their 6-digit HS codes, and commodity groups prone to mis-inv...
The present study focuses on the influence of compliance costs on compliance behaviour of individ... more The present study focuses on the influence of compliance costs on compliance behaviour of individual tax payers in India. The study has attempted to develop theoretical models to explain behaviour of those who file their returns of income for taxation and as well as those who ...
Changing Higher Education in India
Contributions to Indian sociology, 2011
The Future of Higher Education in India, 2019
Saumen Chattopadhyay in his paper ‘World Ranking of Universities: What does it entail for the Fut... more Saumen Chattopadhyay in his paper ‘World Ranking of Universities: What does it entail for the Future of the Universities’ raises some fundamental questions regarding the implications of the quantification and ordering of universities at the global scale on how are the universities evolving. Ranking replaces old ways of social assessment of universities by a numerical assessment approach whereby ranking facilitates students to make informed choices. An important issue, as argued by the author, is whether ranking promotes quality for the higher education system as a whole in a particular country context. The paper argues that the improvemengt in quality of the higher education system as a result of ranking has to be understood in the context of selection based efficiency which is typical of a higher education market and the public good character of higher education system. As ranking parameters guide the decision-making by the university authority, the faculty autonomy in their academic engagement remains circumscribed and, the particular mission of a university may be compromised. Ranking encourages indulgences in unethical practices. The accentuation of the differences within the university system mitigates the objective of massification of higher education. Inevitability of ranking and its impact on the policy making are effecting irreversible changes in the way universities function and in the traditional role of the university in the society and the economy. The author notes that the phenomenon of ranking of universities has led to support various market strategies in higher education which may not prove to be inclusive, participative and democratic in the knowledge general process.
Reclaiming Public Universities, 2022
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Papers by Saumen Chattopadhyay