Interview with Dr. Dushyant Kumar, HoD, Department of Economics & Finance

In October 2020, Dr. Dushyant Kumar was appointed the Head of Department of the Department of Economics and Finance, BPHC. Chetan and Revanth, De-Economist editors and B3 2019 students, joined him on Google Meet for a brief interview. We present the transcript below:

Q: When did you join BPHC, and how has your journey been?

DK: I did my masters from JNU and PhD from ISI, which in nature is different from a place like BITS- the stress and the focus levels are different. For example, ISI Delhi is primarily a research-oriented institute where the focus is more on theory-oriented research. Initially, the first year or so was a bumpy ride; but my time here was good after getting used to this place.

To a large extent, my journey here has coincided with the transformation of the department. A massive number of lecturers had joined the department had joined at the same time as I did, which made my journey good.

Q: During your years of teaching, which subject did you like the most?

DK: A defining thing about my teaching career was that I moved from 1 subject to another, but all these subjects were mostly applied microeconomics (POE, microeconomics, Game theory, Industrial Organization). It's difficult to say which was the best- taking each of them has been a learning experience for me, but if I had to name one of them, it's Industrial Organization, which is something very close to what I do.

Q: What brought you into research? What are your current research interests/ are you working on anything currently?

DK: The analytical and abstract nature of research excites me. The interesting thing about research is that although we are doing it in an abstract way, we can use it for any number of different situations. I am currently working on Conflict theory. I already have a couple of works here. Conflict theory tells the optimal way for two parties to fight. It can be applied in different situations such as:

1) how amazon and Flipkart should fight with each other

2) how a particular branch/department of Flipkart should fight with the main management We are now trying to extend it to fit India's political scenario (delving into political economics).

Q: Sir, you have done your Ph.D. in the Indian Statistical Institute. How would you describe your overall experience?

DK: It had been good. These are focused research institutes, and the flexibility that you get in terms of the area that you want to work in and how you want to design your work, is amazing. For example; there are many areas, including the ones that I've worked on, which require heavy course work. You can do the required coursework for more than two years or so before actually starting your research. This is not the usual case as in other universities, you would be asked to show results in one year. Another good thing about it is that their economics program in masters of science and quantitative economics (MSQE) is a fantastic program. The background of people coming to that course is diverse. This is important for gaining different perspectives.         

BITS, if nurtured in a good way can have a similar advantage. We have students from different branches. We can incorporate appropriate insights of different perspectives and make a good team. When you take a look at people working in fields (which have won them awards, like the auction theory this year) we notice that most of the people are from engineering backgrounds. ISI Delhi does that, its masters program provides diversity in terms of discipline.

Q: Could you comment on the quantitative strength of the current economics program?

DK: At the moment, it's not great. That is the reason we have re-formatted microeconomics gradually over the last 2-3 years. We have changed a lot of the MSM course as well this semester. We are continuously working towards strengthening our program, but we need support from students as well. Students tend to be slightly resistant to the change in the short-run - No one wants their batch to be the first in which such a change has taken place. Therefore, the steps we take need to be gradual.

Q: We know that the Nobel Prize in Economics has gone to Paul R Milgrom and Robert B Wilson for improvements to auction theory. In your opinion, how relevant do you think auction theory is to the wider society?

DK: To put it in one word, how much ever you hype the auction theory, its importance can never be overestimated. Why? If you have to see about resource allocation (eg: dumping out old furniture from the hostel - how should u design the selling process to get maximum revenue or suppose bits is trying to have a new building - how should u design the auction process or procurement process so that you can have the best facility at the minimum cost. At the bigger levels u have telecom spectrums worth billions of dollars - how should this be allocated to the telecom companies so that government revenue is maximized.) Auction theory has been one of the rock-star successes of economics. It is unfortunate that auction theory as a topic is not covered in the basic level. Things like auctions and information economics should be one of the basic courses in our program. What is unfortunate is that even today, in countries like ours, even among the graduates, we do not see auction theory being an area of expertise, because it has not yet been implemented in the curriculum.

Q: How has your experience of teaching changed during this pandemic?

DK: I would say easier than what we expected earlier. Of course, initially it was a completely new setup. We were skeptical about how we were going to manage it, but now i can say that it is going well. I personally adopted it and bits as an organisation has adopted it. Right now, from the feedback we have, not just for the department but for the institute as well, I can say that teaching is going decently. Of course, it is not the first hand solution, but in relative terms, its not that big of a dent. What has been a challenge is the presence of a fair and efficient evaluation scheme. Efficiency is important because if we put too much effort on making it fair, we will end up evaluating all the time rather than teaching. We are working on that but that has been a challenge.

Q: How is your typical day at the university?

DK: So I am not a very disciplined person. Before the pandemic  i used to begin my day with a little badminton. I spend time with my daughter and go about with my work. I can divide my work into 3 parts; teaching, to which I devote the majority of my time; research and finally institutional activities; one thing that has changed due to this pandemic is that I have to take a lot of calls, which I do not prefer.

Q: What are some of your long-term goals for the department?

DK: For the last 2-3 years, I was working very closely with Sudatta ma’am. Whatever improvements or changes that we have been trying to make, we are carrying forward. A couple of other changes is: we are a young department, what i would like to do is strengthen our department and the Ph.D. program. An advantage that we have is that by being in a technical institute, we can exploit the diversity and increase the quality of the PhD program. As of now, economics is just a kind of a value addition to particular BE programs. It doesn't have much strength of its own. i would like to have its own stand to go forward apart from the wonderful value addition it does to the BE programs. I would like to see the addition of new, wonderful courses with huge market demand and exploit it for the students' benefit.

Q: Was there any impact on the research culture due to the pandemic?

DK: Of course, it has impacted, and we can't be aloof of that. A major impact is for the researchers who use primary survey data- the pandemic restricts these surveys. However, compared to other departments, the effect on ours was not as severe due to the nature of our discipline. Although this situation has affected us all, we are trying to go back to the normal conditions(in terms of research). Many of the PhD students have even shifted back to the campus.

Q: Which year, according to you, would be the best time for a student to take up a project?

DK: If higher studies is your objective, I would recommend sometime after your second year. You would have gone through the basic courses by then.

Take your time and go through the faculty profiles of not only our department and other institutions like IIM, ISI, IIT, DSE, and IGIDR. Then see the kind of work you are interested in. Don't hurry it up; try to think of issues that you are excited about and the tools you are comfortable/good with.

Don't ignore the tools part; if you lack in those required for a particular field, you can acquire them in your 3rd year or so.

It would be best to use the connections that our faculty members have in various institutions to your benefit. People may not be very receptive towards you, but you have to take the initiative and be very persistent.

Q: Any word of advice to the students?

DK: I myself am not that organised as such. I don't want to be inconsistent by talking about being organised. one thing that I would like to say is that students at this level should be more focused on learning new things. Whatever your suitability is, focus on learning more basic things in that area. if you have interest in a certain area, don't really think about how it will affect your future prospects, focus on the abstracts and train yourself in the basic concepts as much as you can. the younger generation have things planned out in a very better way compared to ours. I would like to see a relaxed mindset in terms of learning. learn whatever excites you. you will see that these are things that later on will be of real use. Abstract knowledge and analytical knowledge will be really helpful in the long run. in the short run it may be a difficult transition, but once you move forward it will be really helpful. You should do theory to enjoy it not for the utility of it. That's how theory works. that's unfortunate and that's not suitable for an engineering institute.