The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is pleased to invite you to a seminar titled “India’s Labour Productivity Puzzle” featuring a presentation by Amit Basole, Professor of Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, followed by comments from Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP. The session will be moderated by Yamini Aiyar, Visiting Senior Fellow, CSEP.

The seminar will be held on Friday, August 7, 2026, from 4:00 to 5:30 pm (IST) at the CSEP Auditorium, 6, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021.

Please note that this is an in-person event only. If you are in Delhi on the day, we invite you to join us for what promises to be a thought-provoking discussion. The event will be available on the CSEP website and YouTube channel upon completion.

Register here to attend

About the event

BRIDGE – Building Research on Informal Livelihoods in India

It is a well-known reality that the bulk of India works in the informal economy. In recent years, several top-down policy efforts have been undertaken to “formalise” the economy, including GST, greater digitisation (digital payments and e-shram) and most recently the move toward de-regulation via the new labour codes. Added to this, disruptive shifts like the expansion of gig-workers and increased rural-urban migration (both intra-state and inter-state) have created a new kind of informality in labour markets. Third, the expansion of technology-enabled cash transfers has created new policy levers for building social protection systems. Together, these changes raise critical questions about the evolving relationship between the state, firms, and workers in India. They are also a push to understand whether existing policy levers are fit to purpose, given the rapid pace of change in labour markets. BRIDGE, a CSEP initiative, will seek to develop a deeper understanding of these labour market dynamics.

Inaugural Seminar

India has been one of the world’s fastest-growing economies over the past decade. Yet this growth masks a striking paradox: labour productivity growth has slowed significantly, even as output has continued to expand.

In this seminar, Amit Basole will present new research examining this puzzle. The paper argues that the slowdown reflects an intensification of India’s longstanding labour market dualism. While employment has increased, a disproportionate share of workers, particularly women, have moved into self-employment and other informal, lower-productivity activities. The research also documents an unusual reversal of structural transformation, with workers shifting back towards agriculture, alongside a decline in productivity growth even among larger firms. Together, these findings suggest that rising incomes have increasingly been sustained through greater labour intensification rather than improvements in productivity.

Speaker

Amit Basole 

Amit Basole is a Professor of Economics at the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, where he leads the Growth, Structural Change and Distribution vertical at the Centre for the Study of the Indian Economy. From 2017 to 2024, he headed the University’s Centre for Sustainable Employment and was the lead author of the State of Working India (SWI) reports. His principal fields of concentration are poverty and inequality, informality, employment, structural change, and political economy of knowledge.

Discussant

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is a policy economist and heads CSEP, New Delhi, India’s premier multidisciplinary think tank focusing on robust scholarship-driven policy ideas.  He has published widely on subjects related to economic growth, emerging geopolitics, regulation and policy, governance and inclusion.  Currently, he is working on issues of climate change and economic transformation, the great digital opportunity, and the multifaceted challenges emerging from judicial delays. Laveesh Bhandari received his PhD in economics from Boston University, has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi, and is a Visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics.

Moderator

Yamini Aiyar

Yamini Aiyar is a Visiting Senior Fellow, CSEP. She is also Senior Visiting Fellow, Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia and Watson Institute, Brown University, where she is working on a comparison of welfare states in the Global South. Previously, she was President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, a leading multidisciplinary think tank in New Delhi, from 2017-2024. Prior to becoming President, she set up the Accountability Initiative, known for its work on governance, social accountability and expenditure tracking. Yamini’s research spans the fields of contemporary politics, state capacity, welfare policy, federalism and India’s political economy. Her latest book, Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi Schools, was published by Oxford University Press in December 2024. Yamini has published widely in academic and current affairs journals as well as the popular press, including in The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Hindustan Times, Deccan Herald, and The Hindu.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.