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Bina Agarwal | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Agarwal in 2012 | |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Academic career | |
| Field | Development economics[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (B.A.,M.A.) University of Delhi (Ph.D.) |
| Awards | Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize 1996,Edgar Graham Book Prize 1996,The K. H. Batheja Award 1995–96, Leontief Prize 2010,ISEE Kenneth Boulding Award for Ecological Economics 2023 |
| Notes | |
Bina Agarwal is an Indiandevelopment economist and Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute atThe University of Manchester. She has written extensively on land, livelihoods andproperty rights; environment and development; thepolitical economy ofgender;poverty andinequality; legal change; and agriculture and technological transformation.
She is the author of an award-winning book,A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, which has had an impact on governments,NGOs, and international agencies in promotingwomen's rights in land and property.[2] This work has also inspired research inLatin America and globally.[3]
Agarwal's parents were Suraj Mal and Shyama Devi Agarwal, Agarwal named a book prize in their honour.[4] She earned her B.A. and M.A. from theUniversity of Cambridge, and her doctorate in economics from theDelhi School of Economics,University of Delhi, her dissertation wasMechanization in Indian Agriculture: An Analytical Study Based on the Punjab.[5]
Her university positions include posts atPrinceton,Harvard University,University of Michigan,University of Minnesota, andNew York University. At Harvard, she was the first Daniel Ingalls Visiting Professor[6] Agarwal has also been President of the International Society for Ecological Economics.[7] Vice-president of the International Economic Association,[6] President of the International Association for Feminist Economics,[8] on the Board of the Global Development Network, and one of the twenty-one members of theCommission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, chaired by Nobel LaureateJoseph Stiglitz.[9] She has served on the UN Committee for Development Policy (New York) and UNRISD (Geneva). She holds honorary doctorates from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands and theUniversity of Antwerp in Belgium.[6]
Agarwal's expertise is on subjects related torural economy. She has creatively used diverse methodologies (fromeconometric analysis toqualitative assessments) and an interdisciplinary approach, to provide insights on land, livelihoods and property rights; environment and development; the political economy of gender; poverty and inequality; law; and agriculture and technological change. She deals especially with the connectedness ofgender inequality,social exclusion, property, and development. Her pioneering work has had an impact globally both within the academia and among policy makers and practitioners. A large part of her work compares countries, especially within South Asia. InA Field of One's Own (Cambridge University Press, 1994), her most famous work, Agarwal stresses that "the single most important factor affecting women's situation is the gender gap in command over property."[10] She is also on the editorial board of theJournal of Women, Politics & Policy.[11]
Spurred on by Agarwal's work, and the successful movement she led in 2004–2005, Indian policy makers passed the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act in 2005. This Act gives allHindu women (married and unmarried) equal rights with men in the ownership and inheritance of property, in particular agricultural land.[12]
Agarwal has consistently challenged standard economic analysis and assumptions. In her writings on the "bargaining approach" to intra-family relations, she challenges unitaryhousehold models and extends formal bargaining models to highlight the importance ofsocial norms,social perceptions and property ownership in determining women's bargaining power. She also demonstrates the interconnectedness of the family, the community, the market and the state in determining a person's bargaining power in any one sphere. Her paper "Bargaining and Gender Relations" is the single most downloaded paper to date in the journalFeminist Economics.[13] In another article "Bargaining and Legal Change", Agarwal examines how women in India were able to bargain with the State to pass theinheritance laws of 1956 and bring about its amendment in 2005.[14]
In another important extension of her work on gender, property and power, Agarwal demonstrates in her empirically rigours article "Towards Freedom from Domestic Violence", that women's ability to own and inherit land acts as a significant deterrent againstmarital violence. Her recent books include:Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour (coedited;Palgrave, 2005),[15]Capabilities, Freedom and Equality (co-edited,Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2006).[16] Her most recently authored book isGender and Green Governance (Oxford University Press, Oxford and Delhi, 2010) which has been widely cited and favourably reviewed in bothacademic journals and the popular press (EPW and Indian Express).[17]
Bina Agarwal has held distinguished positions at many international universities, includingHarvard University, where she was the first Daniel Ingalls Visiting professor, theUniversity of Michigan inAnn Arbor, Michigan, theUniversity of Minnesota, where she held the Winton Chair, and theNew York University School of Law. In 2006–07, Agarwal was also a visiting research fellow atHarvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. In addition, she has been vice-president of the International Economic Association, president of theInternational Association for Feminist Economics,[18] and on the board of theGlobal Development Network. Agarwal is a founding member of the Indian Society forEcological economics. She is one of only two women who served on the Commission for the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, chaired by Nobel LaureateJoseph Stiglitz and set up byPresident Sarkozy. She has also been consultant to thePlanning Commission of India and is on the editorial boards of several international academic journals.
In 2009, Agarwal was nominated to the board of theUnited Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) – such nominations are approved by theUnited Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). On 29 March 2010 theGlobal Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) awarded her the 2010Leontief Prize – an annual award named after Nobel LaureateWassily Leontief. GDAE Co-director Neva Goodwin wrote: "Bina Agarwal embodies the kind of theoretically rigorous, empirically grounded, and policy-oriented economics that the Leontief Prize was created to recognize," and "Her contributions to both scholarship and policy on economic development, the environment, well-being, and gender have been an inspiration to GDAE for many years." She is the currently president-elect of theInternational Society for Ecological Economics. She also heads a "Working Group on Disadvantaged Farmers, including Women" for India's 12th Five Year Plan, and is on the Indian Prime Minister's Panel on Land Reform. Additionally, Agarwal is on the advisory board forAcademics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP).
In 2017, she received theBalzan Prize for Gender Studies[19] in recognition of her work in studying women's contribution to agriculture in India.[20]
| Non-profit organisation positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of the International Association for Feminist Economics 2004–2005 | Succeeded by |
