Dr. Avishek Konar

Dr. Konar finished his B.A (Economics Honours) from Presidency College, Kolkata, prior to completing M.S.(Quantitative Economics) from Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi). He completed his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. He has taught for a year at Wright State University. He is an applied econometrician and his primary area of research involves investigating motivations other than profit that determine farmer behaviour. Based on his research, peer effects, farmer valuation of environmental stewardship vis-à-vis profit, and their awareness of local environmental issues are important for land management practices like tillage choice which can impinge on environmental outcomes.

I find evidence for a strong impact of peer effects using a Brock and Durlauf (2002) framework, and further test the presence of heterogeneity of farmer decision-making by employing latent class analysis, which indicates that there are two different classes of farmers. The research stresses on the need to utilize non-pecuniary (besides pecuniary) behavioural channels, like peer effects or environmental stewardship of agents, for effective policy prescriptions. In my second research focus area, I use a bivariate probit model to investigate the impact of business cycle on migration and occupation choices made jointly by individuals in a labour market context, and consider the possibility of asymmetric response of migration and occupation changes (i.e. whether the impact of an economic boom is different from that of a downturn).