MPW 2022: Meet Ashima Goyal, RBI's MPC member and a big picture economist

“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle”—a quote from fantasy novelist George R.R. Martin’s book series A Game of Thrones aptly sums up the stand of the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee member (MPC) Ashima Goyal. She is amongst two of the six MPC members advocating for the relaxation of liquidity restrictions to support the country’s growth. While India remains the fastest-growing major economy in the world, with recession looming large, she believes that India has the potential to grow faster given its demographics. Goyal, an Emeritus Professor at the Mumbai-headquartered Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), is also quite positive about taming the monster of inflation in the near future. “Some of the supply shocks are waning throughout the world,” she says.

She is a big-picture economist with a sharp eye on the structural changes that are taking place in the domestic as well as global economies. Goyal, who also sits on the board of Edelweiss Financial Services and SBI General Insurance, has recently written a paper on the Indian financial services sector’s outperformance. “We not only have diversity in our financial sector, but also stronger and broad-based regulations,” says Goyal.

She is also completely abreast with the advent of new tech and its role in the economy. With AI tools like ChatGPT making waves in academic circles by passing exams of law and business schools, this professor of economics says, “these AI tools free up human time for more productive activities”. Right on!