Manya Budhiraja

About

I am a PhD candidate in the Economics Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and I will defend my PhD dissertation in July 2025.

My research interests are in labor economics, development economics, and macroeconomics. My research encompasses both mainstream and heterodox approaches. 

There are two key streams in my current dissertation research (i) A theoretical and empirical inquiry of labor market power and wage-setting in the Indian manufacturing sector, (ii) The theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between output and productivity growth in manufacturing, as captured by the Kaldor-Verdoorn (KV) Law, under alternative conceptualizations of the labor market. 

In my earlier MPhil research, I have worked on the role of financialization in shaping public health outcomes through its impact on the pharmaceutical industry in India. 

My teaching ranges more broadly over econometrics, big data and data science for economics and public policy, labor economics, development economics, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and history of economic thought (including heterodox approaches).