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Profile: I did my undergrad from IIT Kanpur in Economics (M.Sc. Intg. 5-year course) graduating in 2013. I then proceeded to pursue M. Phil. & Ph.D. from Tilburg University (2013–19)
CAT Percentile: VARC(99.95)/DILR(96.59)/QA(99.08)/OA(99.84)
Work Ex: I taught UG & Masters level courses as a part of my doctorate and also had an opportunity to run a Randomized Control Trial(RCT) in Nairobi in 2015. The duration of my work ex was 45 months (Sep 2015-June 2019)
Panel: 2 Male (Duration ~30 mins)
Q1. Introduce yourself?
A. Told about my educational journey from undergrad in IITK to M.Phil. and then research work at Tilburg University. Mentioned my hobbies and places I have stayed/visited.
Q2. Why didn't you finish your Ph.D.?
A. Explained that my research work was not going so well in the last leg. Although I had finished two papers the second paper still needed more refinement and I had not started on the third paper. Additionally, my teaching experience gave me an insight that this was not something I enjoyed doing so much and would like to stop. All this motivated me not to further extend my contract beyond June 2019, and thus I came back home.
Q3. What were your research areas?
A. Microfinance and International Trade. Also explained the Randomized Control Trial I helped run on the field in Nairobi.
Q4. What did you do in Microfinance?
A. I worked on setting up lending contracts that are self-enforcing and don't require collateral, a feature prevalent in micro-finance. The Model assumes homogeneous agents where the group member chooses to work diligently and monitor his partner(costly peer monitoring) to ensure compliance. I extend the multi-agent principal-agent model with costly peer monitoring developed in Carli & Uras (2017) by relaxing the assumption of perfect monitoring. The core result of one of the agents receiving a higher expected return to compensate for higher volatility is preserved, albeit under more stringent conditions. Finally, I evaluate a threshold level of imperfect monitoring beyond which a sustainable joint-liability contract is no longer feasible.
Q5. Did you do any experimental work in your microfinance paper?
A. Told that it was a theoretical paper. I worked as Research Assistant for a project implemented Randomized Control Trial(RCT) in Nairobi, Kenya. The RCT focused on measuring the impact of adopting mobile money technology on small and medium business owners. The project targeted over 1500 business owners who were interviewed regularly over a period of 6 months. My primary responsibility was to train the personnel for undertaking the survey.
Q5. You have also done research in Game Theory in your undergrad, what was your master's thesis?
A. I worked on Ad Avoidance technologies (AAT), their effect on Media Content, and the reason for their increasing presence. Studied an equilibrium existence issue: AAT penetration may lead to more advertising, causing a further increase in AAT and determined a unique equilibrium outcome for the equilibrium existence issue and evaluated optimum advertising level. I also examined content providers’ responses to increased AAT penetration and the effect of ad-avoidance on total social welfare (i.e. we considered the net effect of ad-avoidance on the sum total of producer & consumer surplus). Finally, concluded that higher AAT penetration causes increased user fees and lower advertising levels.
Q6. Can you set up a two-player zero-sum game using linear programming?
A. Told that we can simulate a Prisoner's Dilemma game where the constraints will be such that the payoff from co-operating was higher for both, but unilateral deviation to noncooperation increased that payoff for the player who deviated. This way we can pick every strategy set and run it against unilateral deviation and as such we will converge on the two possible Nash Equilibrium in the game.
Q7. Since you have experienced the COVID-19 period how will rate the government's response to it?
A. Started with the stimulus package of 20L crore INR and how bank reform and digital India along with it are paving the growth for faster economic growth. But, this crisis has pushed over 30% of the middle class back into poverty and the government should come up with methods to put money in the hands of the populace like what the US is doing. Farm laws are a step in the right direction, but the implementation could have been better.
Q8. Do you think China is still an economic center of gravity, and what can India do now to ensure it can also become one?
A. Told that China's recent actions like the COVID-19 pandemic and its actions against Uighurs and Hong Kong democracy protests have dented its public image. On the other hand, India with its vaccine diplomacy and pharma sector growth during the pandemic is well set to become a crucial player in the global value chains. Additionally, we have also started to export defense goods that are made in India which opens up another export area. Thus, we have the momentum now, and we can use this also to attract some labor force from agriculture to the manufacturing sector as agriculture employs almost 66% of the labor force while contributing a measly 15% to GDP which is not sustainable in the long run.
Q9. How will you handle the change from academic research to MBA & corporate life?
A. I have been switching towards corporate since I came back in June 2019, and it won't be an issue. Additionally, I have gone through enough academic rigor to handle the MBA course load and my quantitative achievements show that I am capable enough to handle the workload. Age is a factor, but I have studied with & taught students from different age groups during my Ph.D., so it won't be an issue.
Q10. You mentioned you like reading, what are you reading nowadays?
A. Told that I am a fan of historical/mythological fiction and have read Suheldev & the Shiva Trilogy by Amish. I also like Frederick Forsyth and am currently reading the Cobra which talks about an American operative trying to bring down a global cocaine cartel.
Q11. How do you get time to read multiple books?
A. Told him that I had a Kindle and a Kindle app on my phone which enables me to read multiple books parallelly, and I normally read when I am taking short breaks from work. Also, reading multiple books parallelly makes the experience richer and much more fun for me
Overall it was a good experience, and although I got asked questions from various domains the panel always gave me enough time and asked many follow-up questions which showed that they had a genuine interest in my profile. One of my better interview experiences in this MBA cycle.
Status: Converted