Dr. Venkatraman Anantha Nageswaran, a former executive at Credit Suisse Group AG and Julius Baer Group, has been named as the Government of India’s Chief Economic Adviser (CEA). He succeeds previous CEA KV Subramanian, who returned to academia in December after completing his three-year term.
His appointment comes at a time when India’s economy is showing signs of improvement, but the third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak is posing new hurdles.
Among the difficulties he and the finance ministry must address are income disparity and rising unemployment among the country’s billion-plus population.
The new CEA will be in charge of coming up with new ways to boost growth, invest, and keep the fiscal deficit under control.
Nageswaran’s new job will require him to communicate his opinions on major policy issues with the finance minister, as well as serve as the principal author of the Economic Survey, which is the economy’s yearly report card that is presented to Parliament ahead of the budget.
Dr. Venkatraman Anantha Nageswaran is a well-known economist who works largely in academia.
In 1985, Nageswaran earned a postgraduate diploma in management (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad. In 1994, he received a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for his research on exchange rate empirical behavior.
Between 1994 and 2011, he held multiple leadership positions in macroeconomic and capital market research for several private wealth management companies in Switzerland and Singapore.
Nageswaran is a distinguished visiting professor of economics at Krea University. Between 2019 and 2021, he also served as a part-time member of the Prime Minister’s economic advisory council. ‘The Economics of Derivatives and ‘The Rise of Finance: Causes, Consequences, and Cures’ are two of his co-authored publications.
