DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS SEMINAR SERIES (2018-19)

Dr. Indradeep Ghosh, Associate Professor & Dean (Faculty) at the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics in Mumbai, India, is going to deliver a talk on “The Economic Impact Of A Mumbai-Pune Hyperloop”.

Profile
Dr. Indradeep Ghosh is currently an Associate Professor & Dean (Faculty) at the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics in Mumbai, India. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and before MDAE, he has taught for eight years at Haverford College, a four-year liberal arts college located in Philadelphia, PA. His expertise is in macroeconomics and international economics, and he has published papers in these subjects in peer-reviewed journals such as Global Economy Journal and Review of Development Studies. As a scholar, he is also deeply interested in questions of an interdisciplinary nature, at the intersections of economics and other disciples such as sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy, and religion. His interdisciplinary research has recently been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Quarterly Journal of Speech and Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies. He also maintains an active interest in economics pedagogy and has recently published a paper in the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education.  

Abstract
In late 2017 and early 2018, the Government of Maharashtra embarked on plans to build a Hyperloop network that will connect Mumbai to Pune, reducing the travel time between these two cities from more than three hours to under 30 minutes. This paper describes some of the possible effects of such a development. It introduces a new concept called “cost-of-distance” arbitrage to capture the principal economic force that will be activated by a Hyperloop line and then offers a contextual analysis of how the urban landscapes of Mumbai and Pune might be altered by the line. The paper also presents some preliminary thoughts on how policymakers might adapt extant institutions to the prospect of a Hyperloop line so as to derive the maximum economic benefits from such a revolutionary tool of urban transformation.