Guest: Maria Bach, The American University of ParisHosted and produced by Reinhard Schumacher

In this episode, Reinhard talks with Maria Bach about her PhD thesis Redefining universal development from and at the margins: Indian Economics’ contribution to development discourse, 1870-1905. We discuss her interest in Indian economic thought, her methodological approach of Positive Discourse Analysis, the development of the Indian economy and of Indian economics in the second half of the 19th century. Maria describes how Indian Economics was influenced by the Indian economic experience and the policy they recommended for Indian development. A focus in the discussion is on the distinct concept of development, which Indian economists developed. In Maria's thesis, she focuses on three Indian economists: Dadabhai Naoroji, Mahadev Govind Ranade, and Romesh Chunder Dutt. They are also the main protagonists in our discussion.

Maria Bach is an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at the American University of Paris. She has recently finished her PhD at King’s College London in International Political Economy. In her thesis, she analyses how Indian Political Economists constructed an idea of development at the turn of the 19th century. Before starting her PhD, Maria was a consultant at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris working on a project entitled New Approaches to Economic Challenges. Maria completed her MSc in Development Economics in 2012 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and her BA in International Economics and Applied Mathematics at the American University of Paris in 2011. And Maria is a co-host of Ceteris Never Paribus: The History of Economic Thought Podcast.

An article based on some of her Phd research has been published in the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought (EJHET): What laws determine progress? An Indian contribution to the idea of progress based on Mahadev Govind Ranade's works, 1870–1901