The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled ‘Work From Home, Work From Anywhere: Urban and Global Economic Development’ on Thursday, February 27, 2025. The seminar was jointly organised by CSEP and the Isaac Centre for Public Policy, Ashoka University.

The event featured a presentation by Donald R. Davis, Ragnar Nurkse Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Columbia University, followed by a discussion with Harsha Vardhana Singh, Chairman, IKDHVAJ Advisers LLP and Shahana Chattaraj, Director – Research, World Resources Institute (WRI). The discussion was chaired by Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP.

About the event

International trade and urbanisation have been two important engines of economic growth for countries around the globe. However, in recent years, both have encountered significant disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work, prompting demographic shifts as people relocated away from urban centres, raising questions about the future of cities and labour markets. At the same time, post-pandemic industrial policies—ranging from subsidies to tariffs—have placed new pressures on global trade dynamics, reshaping supply chains and economic relationships between nations. As cities have historically thrived as hubs of commerce and international exchange, these shifts in trade policies and workforce distribution are redefining the economic role of urban centres. Against this evolving landscape, this talk explored pressing issues and emerging ideas in urban and labour economics, as well as international trade, offering insights into how these forces continue to shape economic development.

Presenter

Donald R. Davis

Donald R. Davis is the Ragnar Nurkse Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Columbia University. He earned his undergraduate degree in social and ethical philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD in Economics from Columbia. Before joining Columbia, he was a faculty member at Harvard University from 1992 to 1999.

Davis has served as Chairman of Columbia’s Department of Economics and has been on various editorial boards. He is also a past president of the Urban Economics Association.

His research spans multiple areas within spatial economics, including international trade, economic geography, regional economics, and urban economics. His work has explored trade theory testing, the role of market scale in international trade, trade and inequality, the distribution of skills across cities of different sizes, and the segregation of consumption by race and ethnicity within cities.

Chair

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy. 

Discussants

Harsha Vardhana Singh

Harsha Vardhana Singh is Chairman, IKDHVAJ Advisers LLP, a boutique consulting firm on trade policy, industrial policy and regulatory policy. He has worked at the GATT/WTO for 20 years, including as Deputy Director General for 8 years. From mid-1997 to September 2005, he was Economic Adviser, and then Secretary of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Since end-2013, he has worked with Think Tanks in India, US, Switzerland and Canada, taught at Universities in the US and China, and been member/Chairperson of High-Level Expert Groups in India and abroad on international trade/ industrial policy and competition policy.

Shahana Chattaraj

Shahana Chattaraj is Director of Research, at the World Resources Institute (WRI) Centre for Equitable Development. Working with governments, the private sector, civil society and communities, WRI’s Equity Center explores crucial questions about how the world can advance action to address climate change and improve human well-being, with a particular focus on environmental rights, governance and equitable access to land and natural resources rights for vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Shahana’s research interests lies at the intersection of cities, urbanisation and development, with a focus on comparative urban research; urban political economy, governance and planning; migration; the informal economy and the informalization of work. Shahana has taught and held fellowships at Oxford University, the University of Pennsylvania and Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. She holds a PhD in Public Affairs from Princeton University, a master’s degree in international development from MIT, and an undergraduate degree in Architecture. Prior to her PhD, she worked at the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank, as well as a community development organisation in Delhi.

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.