Deepak Nayyar is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Earlier, he taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex, and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.
He was Distinguished University Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, New York, from 2008 to 2012. And he was invited to the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the United States Library of Congress, Washington DC, for the academic year 2022-23.
His professional life in academia has been interspersed with short periods in the government. He was, to start with, in the Indian Administrative Service, in the Uttar Pradesh cadre, from 1969 to 1973. Subsequently, he was also engaged with the world of public policy. He was Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, from 1983 to 1985. Later, he served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, from 1989 to 1991.
Professor Nayyar is Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, in Britain, since 2020. He was Chairman of the Board of the World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, from 2001 to 2008. He was Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, from 2004 to 2007. He was on the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council in the United States from 2001 to 2007. He was Vice President of the International Association of Universities, Paris, from 2004 to 2008.
He served as a member of many commissions, both national and international. He was a Member of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, established by the ILO, from 2002 to 2004. He was Vice Chairman of the South Centre, Geneva, from 2011 to 2014 and Member of its Board from 2005 to 2011. He was a Member of the National Knowledge Commission in India from 2005 to 2009.
Professor Nayyar is Chairman of the Sameeksha Trust, which publishes Economic and Political Weekly. He is, at present, Chairman of the Board for the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, from 2014 to 2025. He was also President of the Indian Society for Labour Economics from 2014 to 2025.
He has also served as a Director on the Board of several firms in the corporate sector in India: Press Trust of India, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Steel Authority of India, ICRA (Indian Credit Rating Agency), Maruti Udyog, Export-Import Bank of India, State Bank of India, and State Trading Corporation of India.
He was educated at St. Stephen’s College and the Delhi School of Economics. Thereafter, as a Rhodes Scholar, he went on to study at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he obtained a B. Phil and a D. Phil in Economics.
He has received the VKRV Rao award for his contribution to research in Economics, and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for his lifetime contribution to Development Studies.
His research interests are in the areas of international economics, development economics, macroeconomics, political economy and economic history. His publications – numerous articles in professional journals and several books – span a wide range of themes. His recent books, Resurgent Asia and Asian Transformations, published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, analyze the remarkable economic transformation, and rise, of Asia during the past half-century.
