Kaushik Basu is senior vice president (Development Economics) and chief economist of the World Bank. Prior to this, he served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and is currently on leave from Cornell University where he is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies. Basu is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and received India’s Padma Bhushan award as well as the National Mahalanobis Memorial award. Basu’s contributions span development economics, welfare economics, industrial organization and game theory. In addition to Cornell, he has taught at the Delhi School of Economics, Harvard, Princeton and MIT. He has published widely, including more than 160 papers in refereed journals and scholarly volumes, and has contributed articles to many widely read magazines and newspapers. He has written several books including ‘Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics’ (Princeton University Press and Penguin); and ‘An Economist in the Real World: the Art of Policymaking in India’ (MIT Press). Basu holds a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. He is the second World Bank Chief Economist from a developing country and the first from India.