Yugank is associate professor in the JSW School of Public Policy at IIM Ahmedabad. Earlier he taught at FLAME University in Pune, where he created www.indiandistricts.in, a pioneering large-scale documentation of district-level cultures and statistics of India (with Maharashtra as the first state), and a reiimagination of the colonial gazetteers.
Previously, he has worked at OP Jindal Global University, where he played founding role in establishing their law and liberal arts schools. Later, he helped set up the Indian School of Public Policy. Prior to joining academia, he worked with a private sector bank’s joint venture with a state government in India as a consultant.
His research focuses on regulation, policy processes and knowledge systems, drawing on law and economics, new institutional economics and legal studies. Most of his work is applied, say, on informal markets, bureaucratic governance, public procurement, higher education, legal pluralism, historical determinants of policies. He also enjoys psephology and recently co-authored Who moved my Vote: Digging through Indian Electoral Data (Westland).
Over the years, he has taught courses on economics, law and economics, public policy, ethics, future studies, quantitative reasoning at various institutions.
He regularly advises governments on policy issues, serving as Member of the NEP Steering Committee of Maharashtra, on the Executive Council of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, as an Hon. Advisor at Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA), and on the Academic Advisory Council Member of Indian School of Public Policy. Passionate about small towns and rural India and has founded a small school in a village of western Uttar Pradesh.
Primary Area : JSW-SPP
Email : yugankg@iima.ac.in
Mobile : +91 79 7152 4342
Secretary : Shylaja Deepak
Phone : +91-79-7152 7911
PhD (Law & Economics), Erasmus University Rotterdam and University of Bologna (Erasmus Mundus Scholar)
LL.M. (Law & Economics), University of Hamburg and University of Manchester (Erasmus Mundus Scholar)
B.Tech. (Mechanical Engineering), National Institute of Technology, Surat
Law & Economics
Institututional Economics
Regulatory Governance
Legal and Policy Design
Knowledge Systems
Bureaucracy
Professor in Public Policy, FLAME University, Pune, 2023-25
Associate Professor in Public Policy, FLAME University, Pune, 2021-23
Director, Centre for Knowledge Alternatives, FLAME University, Pune, 2021-2025
Associate Professor & Associate Dean, Jindal School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, 2014-2021
Assistant Professor & Assistant Dean (International Relations), Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, 2010-2012
Research Associate, Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, 2010- 2012
Member, NEP Steering Committee, Government of Maharashtra, 2023
Member, Executive Council, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE), Pune, 2024
Honorary Advisor, , Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA), Government of Maharashtra, 2025
Member, Academic Advisory Council, Indian School of Public Policy, New Delhi, 2022
Regional Advisory Member, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs, 2022-2024
Towards Regulating Coaching Industry in India: Evidence from a Survey of Students, Economic & Political Weekly 59(23) (2024, with G. Pitalia, A. Navander, T. Chhabra, M. Menon, K. Shah) Link
A theory of legal apparitions: regulation and escape in Indian divorces. International Journal of Law in Context 19(3): 1-19. (2023) Link
The Need for Developing a New Taxonomy for MSME: The Case for Nano-enterprises. Economic & Political Weekly 58 (34) (2023, with S. Manurkar) Link
Public procurement during the pandemic: experience of India and China. Journal of Public Procurement, 22(3), 222-241. (2022) Link
Informal land leasing in rural India persists because it is credible. Land Use Policy, 120, 106299. (2022, with P. Chaudhury and R. Ghosh) Link
Why do informal markets remain informal: the role of tacit knowledge in an Indian footwear cluster. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 31(2), 639-659. (2021, with K. Heine) Link
Using Public Procurement Strategically: Lessons from the Pandemic. Economic & Political Weekly 56 (38): 16-19. (2021) Link
Responsibilization through regulatory intermediaries in informal markets: examining the governance of prostitution in India. Regulation & Governance, 16(3), 858-874. (2020) Link
Telecom Woes in India: What does it tell us about regulation, Economic & Political Weekly 55(1): 16-21. (2020) Link
The coal mine Mafia of India: a mirror of corporate power. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 77(2), 541-574. (2019) Link
Are small firms willing to pay for improved power supply? Evidence from a contingent valuation study in India. Energy Policy, 109, 659-665. (2017, with R. Ghosh et. al.) Link
We shall not cease from exploration: Why do IP protections harm Traditional Cultural Expressions. In Florent Thouvenin et. al. Kreation | Innovation | Märkte – Creation| Innovation | Markets – Festschrift Reto M. Hilty, Springer Nature (2024, with H. Shah) link
Of entrepreneurs, knowledge commons and informal markets. In Governing Market as Knowledge Commons, by P. Kuchar and E. Dekker (eds.) Cambridge University Press (2021) link
Of footwear clusters, trade credit and institutional tenacity. In Invisible Institutionalisms. Collective reflections on the shadows of legal globalization, by S. Dezalay and S. Balakrishnen (eds.) Hart Publishing (2021) link
Neighbourhood in Space-Time: A case of House Prices and Latent Aspirations. In Neighbourhoods in Urban India, by Sadan Jha, D.N. Pathak and A.K. Das (eds.) Bloomsbury (2020, with H. Shah) link
Towards a transaction cost approach to the essential facilities doctrine. In Multidimensional Approaches Towards New Technology: Insights on Innovation, Patents and Competition, by I. Gupta et. al. (eds.) Springer (2018 with P. Ramanujam et. al.) link
The Phoenix of Interdisciplinarity in Higher Education. In The Future of Indian Universities: Comparative and International Perspectives, by C. Raj Kumar et al (eds.) New Delhi: Oxford University Press (2017) link
A Short Note on Concept of Validity in Informal Markets. In Legal Validity and Soft Law, Jaap Hage et. al. (Eds.). Springer (2017, with Pauline Westerman) link
Who moved my Vote: Digging through Indian Electoral Data. Westland Publishers (2023, with A. Kaushik)
President of India and Governance of Higher Education Institutions. Universal Law Publishing (2015, with C. Raj Kumar et. al.)
Call a spade a spade: Yes, it’s online gambling that’s banned. Mint, August 2024 link
India must adopt a policy framework for early cancer detection. Mint, June 2024 (with J. Sant) link
Election wins and losses: Margin analysis reveals a luckier Congress than BJP. Mint, June 2024 (with M.P. Menon) link
Even Indian universities can boost local economies in student zones. Mint, April 2024 (with K. Shah) link
Question hour: Have opposition parties done well in Parliament? Mint, April 2024 (with S. Ramkumar) link
When Legal Procedures are Informally Copy-Pasted: Divorce Matters in India. India in Transition, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, Feb 2024 link
Manifestos as a Tool for Accountability: A Content Analysis of the 2004-2019 UPA and NDA Poll Manifestos. Observer Research Foundation, 2023 (with O. Karwa and S. Deo) link
Foreign Universities in India: Lessons and Learnings from Global Experiences. Observer Research Foundation, 2023 (with K. Shah) link
Karnataka’s electoral contest is closer than seat shares suggest. Mint, May 2023 (with A. Kaushik) link
How can we harness Indian cinema’s soft power in nation building. Indian Express, November 2022 (with V. Sahasrabuddhe) link
Judicial Delays and the need for intervention at local levels. Mint, May 2022 (with S. Jalihal) link
Winds of change in urban India that need close investigation. Mint, March 2022 (with S. Jalihal) link
Far too many businesses in India stumble on loan eligibility. Mint, Jan 2022 (with Nikhilla B.) link
What our Constituent Assembly debates reveal of a vital process. Mint, Nov 2021 (with S. Jolad) link
What election manifestos tell us about Indian Politics. Mint, Nov 2021 (with O. Karwa and S. Deo) link
A policy to regulate coaching centres. Hindu, June 2019 link
My Life Is My Message: Ramachandra Guha’s “Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948”. Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2019 link
During 2024-25, weekly contributor to a major Marathi daily, Sakal’s weekend magazine, Sarkarnama, for a column titled, Datanama (most articles can be accessed here)
Can we understand Policy Processes using Knowledge Commons: the Case of Indian Policymaking, Governing Knowledge Commons Conference, Villanova University, May 2025 (Philadelphia)
Why are Scholars also Activists in Global South, Global Scholactivism Workshop, organised by the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, December 2024 (Hong Kong)
Scholars in the Global South: Intellectuals, Activists or Interlopers. IRC 39, Law & Society Association Conference 2022 (Lisbon)
Social Cohesion, Constitution and Regulatory Design, Roundtable on Understanding Living Constitutions, Konrad Adeneur Stiftung, December 2019 (Seoul)
Informality writ large: Courts and Regulating Street Vendors, Workshop on Writs and Constitutional Transfers, UNSW, November 2019 (Sydney)
How Evasive Entrepreneur uses Knowledge Commons: The case of informal trade credit in India, Manuscript Conference, George Mason University, March 2019 (Washington DC)
Policymaking for informality, IGLP Colloquium, Universidad de Los Andes, August 2018 (Bogota)
Universities of the Future, 7th International Conference on World Class Universities, November 2017, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai)
Transaction Costs of Law and the Idea of Legal Apparitions – The case of Indian divorce (laws), Law & Society Association Conference, June 2017 (Mexico City)
Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School, organised by Thailand Institute of Justice, January 2017 (Bangkok)
Regulation of Informality: Case of Prostitution, Regulation Governance Conference, Tilburg University, July 2016 (Tilburg)
Efficacy and Validity in Informal Markets: Hart and a little bit of Hindi, Validity in Law, University of Groningen, December, 2015 (Groningen).
Docent at Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School, 2012 (Cambridge, USA), 2014 (Doha) & 2015 (Doha)
Sociology of Informal Markets, for the stream of ‘Governance and Development in the Age of Globalization,’ at Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI), June 2015 (Providence, RI).
Economics of Sex Work in India, Harvard Law School, June 2015 (Boston).
Formality vs informality interaction: reflection in institutions and practices, HSE Doctoral Seminar, Higher School of Economics, Russia, April 2015 (Moscow).
Institutional Analysis of Informal Markets: Evidence from India, Joint Seminar on Future of Law and Economics, Université Paris X, March 2015 (Paris).
International Labor Law, Exclusion and Governance: Unpacking Informality, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), American University in Cairo, February 2015 (Cairo).
