The 16th Neemrana Conference December 12-14, 2014 Neemrana, Rajasthan NCAER is organising the 2014 Neemrana Conference. The Conference is a partnership between NCAER, NBER, and ICRIER. 2 The 16th Neemrana Conference December 12-14, 2014 Neemrana, Rajasthan 1 This Neemrana Conference booklet has been specially produced on the occasion of the 16th Neemrana Conference, December 12-14, 2014. © NCAER, 2014 NCAER gratefully acknowledges the generous support for the 16th Neemrana Conference from Tata Consultancy Services. December 2014 Published by Anil K Sharma Secretary and Head of Operations National Council of Applied Economic Research Parisila Bhawan, 11 Indraprastha Estate New Delhi 110 002 Tel: (91-11) 2337-9861 to 3 Fax: (91-11) 2337-0164
[email protected] www. ncaer.org Printed at Archana Press 2 CONTENTS The faithful and the occasional: Neemrana participants 1999-2014. 4 The Neemrana Conferences 1999-2014 5 The Neemrana Conference 2014 Programme 7 Participants 11 Photographs from earlier conferences 33 Neemrana participants 1999-2013 35 The Conference Team 39 3 The faithful and the occasional: Neemrana participants 1999-2014 4 The Neemrana Conferences 1999-2014 The Neemrana Conference was born out of conversations in a remote mountain valley in the US that then led to a meeting in New Delhi. Rakesh Mohan, Director-General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in the late 1990s, received a call one day from Montek Ahluwalia, then at the Planning Commission, requesting him to meet a visitor to New Delhi from the University of Chicago, Raghuram Rajan. Montek had earlier met Martin Feldstein from Harvard, then also President of the National Bureau of Economic Research, at the Jackson Economic Policy Symposium hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in late August every year.1 In the beautiful settings of the Grand Teton National Park, Montek had wondered why US economists had so little interest in policy developments in India.