Sriya Iyer
Dr Sriya Iyer
University Reader in Economics and Official Fellow of St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge
Research interests: Development Economics, Social Economics, Empirical Microeconomics
Specific: Religion, Demography, Health, Education, Inequality
Research
Books
2019. Advances in the Economics of Religion, eds. J-P Carvalho, S. Iyer and J. Rubin, Palgrave Macmillan, Volume 158, International Economic Association Series. 485 pages.
2018. The Economics of Religion in India, Cambridge Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 304 pages. More information
2002. Demography and Religion in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 288 pages.
Journal Articles
2021 forthcoming. 'Religion and Discrimination: A Review Essay of Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom'. Journal of Economic Literature.
2020. 'Social Interactions, Ethnicity, Religion and Fertility in Kenya' (with M. Weeks), Journal of Demographic Economics, September, 86(3): 329-365.
2020. 'Culture and Colonial Legacy: Evidence from Public Goods Games' (with L. Chaudhary, J. Rubin and A. Shrivastava), Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 173, May: 107-129.
2019.'Religion and Depression in Adolescence' (with J. Fruehwirth and A. Zhang), Journal of Political Economy, June, 127(3): 1178-1209.
2018. 'Religious Riots and Electoral Politics in India' (with A. Shrivastava), Journal of Development Economics, 131, March, pp. 104-122.
2016. 'The New Economics of Religion' Journal of Economic Literature, 54: 2, June, pp. 395-441 (lead article).
2014. ‘Communication and Marketing of Services by Religious Organizations in India’ (with C. Velu and A. Mumit) Journal of Business Research, 67, pp. 59-67.
2013. ‘Missing Women and India’s Religious Demography’ (with S. Joshi) Journal of South Asian Development 8(3), pp. 301-331.
2013. ‘Missing Women in the United Kingdom’ (with A. Adamou and C. Drakos) IZA Journal of Migration Volume 10, Issue 2.
2013. ‘The Economics of Consanguineous Marriages’ (with S. Joshi and Q. Do) Review of Economics and Statistics, July, 95(3), pp.904-918.
2012. ‘Dominance and Innovation: A Returns-Based Beliefs Approach’ (with C. Velu and J. Gair), Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, Volume 28, Issue 3, 264–281, May/June.
2007. ‘The Effectiveness of Jobs Reservation: Caste, Religion and Economic Status in India’ (with V. K. Borooah and A. Dubey), Development and Change, Volume 38, Number 3, May, pp. 423-445.
2006. ‘Real Options and Demographic Decisions’ (with C. Velu), Journal of Development Economics, Volume 80, Number1, June, pp. 39-58.
2005. ‘The Decomposition of Inter-Group Differences in a Logit Model: Extending the Oaxaca-Blinder Approach with an Application to School Enrolment in India’ (with V. Borooah), Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 30, Number 4, pp. 279-293.
2005. ‘Vidya, Veda and Varna: The Influence of Religion and Caste on Education in Rural India’ (with V. Borooah), Journal of Development Studies, Volume 81, Number 4, November, pp.1369-1404.
2005. ‘Social Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Development’ (with M. Kitson and B. Toh), Regional Studies, Volume 39, Number 8, November, pp. 1015-1040.
2005. ‘Religion, Literacy, and the Female-to-Male Ratio in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume 40, Number 5, pp. 419-427.
2004. 'The Risk of Child and Adolescent Mortality among Vulnerable Populations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil', (with M. Monteiro), Journal of Biosocial Science, pp.1- 24.
2003. ‘Religion, Reproduction and Development in Contemporary India’, Development, Volume 46, Number 4, December.
2002. ‘Religion and the Decision to use Contraception in India’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 4, Number 1, pp. 711-722.
Chapters in Book Volumes
2020. 'The Economics of Religion in Developing Countries' in Religion and Human Flourishing, edited by Adam Cohen, Baylor University Press.
2019. 'Religion and Demography' in Advances in the Economics of Religion, edited by J-P Carvalho, S. Iyer and J. Rubin. International Economic Association Series, Volume 158, Palgrave Macmillan.
2019. 'Introduction' (with J-P. Carvalho and J. Rubin) in Advances in the Economics of Religion, edited by J-P Carvalho, S. Iyer and J. Rubin. International Economic Association Series, Volume 158, Palgrave Macmillan.
2018. 'Religion and Institutions' in A Research Agenda for New Institutional Economics, edited by Claude Menard and Mary S. Shirley. Edward Elgar Publishing.
2013. ‘Why Marry a Cousin? Insights from Bangladesh’ (with S. Joshi and Q. Do). In Marrying in South Asia, edited by Ravinder Kaur and Rajni Parliwala, Orient Black Swan, pp. 208-233.
2009. ‘Gender, Religion and the Age at Marriage in India'. In M. Pal, P. Bharati, B. Ghosh and T. S. Vasulu eds. Gender and Discrimination: Health, Nutritional Status and Role of Women in India, Oxford University Press.
2008. ‘Religion and Economic Development’ In Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume eds., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Second Edition, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2006. ‘Human Capital’. In David A. Clark ed. The Elgar Companion to Development Studies. North-Holland.
Working Papers
Probabilistic Choice Models (with Jonathan Gair and Chander Velu), January 2021.
A Simulation Study of How Religious Fundamentalism Takes Root (with Daniel Friedman, Jijian Fan, Jonathan Gair, Bartosz Redlicki and Chander Velu), September 2020.
Economic Shocks and Temple Desecrations in Medieval India (with Rohit Ticku and Anand Shrivastava), September 2020.
Divine Competition: Religious Organizations and Service Provision in India (with Chander Velu and Melvyn Weeks), April 2018.
In progress: Religion and Covid-19 (with Girish Bahal and Anand Shrivastava), 2020.
In progress: Religion and Labour Markets in India (with Girish Bahal and Anand Shrivastava), 2020.
In progress: Religion and Insurance in Brazil (with Tiago Cavalcanti, Christopher Rauh, Christian Roerig and Maryam Vaziri), 2020.
Other Writing
'Holy Wars? Temple Desecrations in Medieval India', IDEAS FOR INDIA, 27 March 2017.
'Temples and Economists', THE WHEEL publication, St. Catharine's College, June 2015.
'Faith, Fertility and the Field Economist', The British Academy Review, Number 7, pp. 33-35, 2003.
Journal Editorial Boards
Journal of Comparative Economics
Journal of Religion and Demography
Journal of Economics, Management and Religion
Podcasts, Talks and Interviews
March 2021 interview: Making Economic Sense of Religion - A Special Interview with Dr Sriya Iyer, The Review of Religions, 14 March 2021.
October 2020 podcast: Ideas of India: The Economics of Religion, Interview by Dr Shruti Rajagopalan, Mercatus Center, Washington DC.
April 2017 interview: http://www.ecnmy.org/engage/we-asked-economics-of-religion-professor-to-explain-what-her-subject-actually-means/
Media
The Wall Street Journal The Marketplace of Faith, 28 December 2018
A Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 2018
Marginal Revolution What I’ve been reading
SheThePeople Sriya Iyer’s Latest Brings Economics & Religion Under The Same Lens
The Quartz Why India’s economic growth hasn’t deterred religious rioting
The Mint Why Religion Steps In When the State Steps Back
Business Standard Between God and State
Frontline Retailing Religion
Religion Watch Findings & Footnotes - September 2018
Ceteris Numquam Paribus - Interview
Books and Ideas- Gods and Rupees
Conferences
International Economic Association Roundtable on The Economics of Religion, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 10-11 July 2017. Link to Cambridge Roundtable Website.
The book volume from the Cambridge IEA Roundtable is Advances in the Economics of Religion (eds J-P Carvalho, S. Iyer and J. Rubin), IEA Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Photographs from the IEA Roundtable, Cambridge, 10-11 July 2017
