Jishnu

Jishnu Das
An economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development and Public Services Team).

Jishnu received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Economics in 2001. Since joining the World Bank, Jishnu has worked on issues related to the delivery of basic services, particularly health and education. His research focuses on the interaction between households and service providers, both private and public, as well as the way in which differences in access to services, quality and information shape these interactions. This work draws upon data collected in Zambia (education), India (health and education), Pakistan (education) and Paraguay (health).

Recent papers include a symposium on the quality of health care in Health Affairs and related work in the Journal of Development Economics; the link between teacher absenteeism and student test-scores (forthcoming in Journal of Human Resources); and the structure of educational provision in Pakistan in Comparative Education Review. In 2006, his work on religious education in Pakistan received the George Bereday Award from the Comparative and International Education Society. His work has been cited in the Economist, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, New York Times, The Guardian, Nature, The Times of India, Indian Express, The Hindu, Dawn, Daily Times, Voice of America and other media outlets.

For the last two years, he has also been working on natural disasters in the context of the earthquake that hit northern India and Pakistan in October 2005. He co-founded the website www.risepak.com to help coordinate relief in the aftermath of the quake. The website was awarded the Stockholm Challenge Award (2006) for the best ICT project in the public administration category.

He currently lives in Delhi with Carol and young Lucas.