Avik Ghosh is a seasoned central banker, researcher, and economist with over 15 years of industry experience. Currently serving as an Assistant General Manager at the Reserve Bank of India, he specializes in financial economics, policy research, and applied econometrics. A PhD scholar at IIT Kanpur, Avik holds multiple prestigious qualifications, including CMA, FMVA®, and CBCA.
His research spans development economics, financial modeling, green finance, and AI-driven policy analysis, with several publications in reputed journals. Passionate about data-driven decision-making, he collaborates internationally on empirical research, contributing innovative insights into migration, financial inclusion, and sustainable economic policies.

About Me

My Background and Research Interest

I am a central banker, researcher, and economist specializing in financial economics, policy research, and applied econometrics. My work focuses on development economics, financial inclusion, green finance, and AI-driven policy modeling, combining data analytics, econometrics, and machine learning to drive evidence-based insights. I have published extensively on macroeconomic policies, migration governance, fiscal populism, and climate finance, collaborating with global experts to shape sustainable economic policies. Passionate about quantitative research and policy analysis, I integrate advanced statistical techniques with real-world economic challenges. My goal is to contribute to data-driven policymaking that fosters inclusive growth, financial stability, and sustainability.

Educational Background

What I’ve Learned

January 2021 - January 2026

Doctor of Philosophy, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India

I am a PhD Scholar at IME, IIT Kanpur. My areas of research interest are Data Analytics on economic problems, Advance Econometrics, AI-driven modeling on social problems. I work on various research projects related to Energy Economics, Financial Economics and Development Economics in collaboration with various domain-experts across the globe.

June 2017 - February 2019

Cost and Management Accounting (CMA), ICMAI

I hold the title CMA (Cost and Management Accountant), a professional Master's Degree from the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, a statutory body under an Act of the Indian Parliament. My registration number is 46560. In this role, I am an expert in Cost Control, Cost Audit, Project Finance, Corporate Finance, and Financial Markets. I am an All-India Rank holder in the final exam.

June 2005 - June 2009

B.E. (Electrical Engineering), Jadavpur University

I completed my Bachelor's of Engineering from Jadavpur University. I graduated with First Class Honors Degree in Electrical Engineering.

August 2021 - May 2022

Executive PG Programme in Machine Learning and AI, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore

I have completed this programme with a special focus on AI and ML having strong application orientation for solutions of real-time research problems.

2020

Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA)®

I am a certified Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA)® from Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) in 2020

2020

Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst (CBCA)™

I am a certified Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst (CBCA)™ from Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) in 2020

2016 - 2017

CAIIB, IIBF

Completed JAIIB (Jr. Associate) (in 2016) and CAIIB (Certified Associate) (in 2017) of Indian Institute of Bankers (IIBF) in the first attempt.

June 2019

University Grants Commission (UGC)- NET- Management

Qualified UGC-NET exam, determining the eligibility for the post of professors in India, with Management as a subject with 99.83 percentile

TOP PUBLICATIONS

Few of Many

Exploring the Relevance of Crude Oil Prices and Installed Generation Capacity in Prognosticating the NIFTY Energy Index

April 2022

The article brings a new approach with a proficient rendition of the existing literature emphasizing the stock and oil prices (OP) nexus, and it uniquely incorporates the demand-side impact of the domestic electricity installed capacity (IC) on India’s benchmark NIFTY Energy Index (NEI). The study undertakes a multivariate time series analysis consisting of a dual-cointegration exercise with the Johansen test and the Bounds test followed by a comprehensive residual analysis. From the multivariate analysis, the study found that the underlying variables are having a significant long-run association among them, while with Granger causality test, it detects a bidirectional causality in the case of IC and energy index pair, and no significant causality in the case of crude OP and energy stock returns pair. After this, the study proceeds with a univariate analysis of a long time series and establishes that the NEI can be foreseen with a suitable ARMA model and residual heteroscedasticity EGARCH analysis even in the presence of exogenous shocks.

10.1177/09763996221081196

Role of Climato-Economic Transmission Mechanism in Determining Economic Outlook: A Sentiment Analysis-based Forecasting Model for Various Asian Country Groups

October 2024: Conference: International Conference on Innovation and Integration for Sustainable Development at Foreign Trade University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Climate risk is the probability of adverse climate-related hazardous events or trends occurring due to vulnerability and their physical impact, causing loss or damage (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014). Climate risks could affect the economy through various transmission channels, primarily dominated by policies aimed at sustainable governance (Network for Greening the Financial System et al. 2021). Carroll (2022) also indicated that the interaction of policy, physical risk, and real economy would likely define the climate risk for the financial sector. Though there are studies regarding the impact of climate change on financial stability, credit cost, and business models (Pointner and Ritzberger-Grünwald, 2019; Battiston, Dafermos, and Monasterolo, 2021), there is a shortage of research design and methodologies to incorporate diverse transmission mechanisms of climate risk to influence macroeconomic variables and financial stability. In this study, we use the Large Language Models and logistic regression for aspect-based Sentiment Analysis from government publications and federal policy document repositories for various Asian countries to establish the plausible effect of State-driven policy adoption and intervention in influencing the climate change dynamics. Taking a cue from these findings, we further deploy fixed-effect panel regression and Instrument Variable techniques for major Asian country groups for 30 years to study the role of climate change dynamics on economic outlook, factoring in policy sentiment scenarios. We also examine the country group-level heterogeneity amongst various climatic risk determinants impacting macroeconomic factors. This study highlights the importance of sustainable policy sentiments and pinpoints the pivotal role of policy-driven transmission channels in affecting financial indicators due to climatic change.

Budgetary deficits and macro budgetary components- examining ‘Law of Contiguity’ through spatial analysis of Indian states

January 2025- Development Studies Research

Spatial economics deals with the mutual socioeconomic influence of the geographical boundary of an administrative body on the neighboring entities- municipalities, districts, states, and countries. Researchers have conducted spatial analyses to solve a variety of economic problems like labor dynamics, wage equilibrium, capital formation, and demographic agglomeration/dispersion, among others. However, the application of spatial economics in public finance, despite being a pressing priority, has not been extensively explored. With India being the largest democracy in the world and having a decentralized state budget mechanism in place, focused attention is required to measure the contiguity effect in state finance. I find strong spatial dependence by implementing a fixed effect panel regression design followed by a spatial regression approach to assess fiscal health in Indian states over 22 years. The analysis reveals spatial dependence on both the income and expenditure sides of state budgetary fiscal and primary deficits. I also analyze the dynamics of the capital budget revenue and its idiosyncrasies in determining the spatial roles that govern state deficits. The empirical results underscore that fiscal policymaking through budget preparation for an Indian state must account for major fiscal components of bordering states to achieve targeted fiscal objectives.

10.1080/21665095.2025.2451032

Analysis of Energy Substitution vis-a-vis Security Policy Trade-off with the Emissions Embodied in Bilateral Trade: An Index Decomposition Approach

July 2021- Research Bulletin, Vol 47, The Institute of Cost Accountants of India

The trade-off between climate protection and energy security is more striking for the developing countries those are having fewer resources to combat the risk of sudden supply disruptions of energy, however, its reflection in the literature is not found sufficient. This paper aims at exploring this trade-off by uniquely representing the India-UK bilateral trade and applies a spatial index-decomposition exercise of the emissions embodied in the net export. The calculated emission imbalance implied in India-UK bilateral trade is decomposed into the contributions from five important drivers. The study compares the policy trade-offs under three hypothetical scenarios where India is adopting prudent policy measures imitating the UK. Based on these scenario experiments, the study suggests a decision trick where India is adopting a lower energy intensity of input use by altering its energy consumption level keeping the employment of inputs unchanged. (http://icmai-rnj.in/index.php/rb/article/view/167632)

Financial Inclusion and Policy Shocks: An Application of Topic Modelling on Central Banks’ SDG-driven Policy Predilection for Asia-Pacific Countries

January 2025- Conference: From Crisis to Resilience, Shaping the Future of Banking in Asia and the Pacific by Asian Development Bank at: Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo

Financial Inclusion (FI) plays a determining role in achieving inclusive and sustainable macroeconomic policy outcomes, one of the fundamental premises of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, the countries' central banks formulate related policies and contribute as enablers to the transmission pathway from inclusive policymaking to sustainable and equitable economic growth. Country-specific studies, mostly restricted to a specific financial inclusion scheme/initiative, examined the role of financial inclusion in shaping SDG deliverables, with a particular focus only on poverty alleviation and equitable income generation. Also, no empirical exploration has yet been performed to ascertain the role of central banks’ policy biases/priorities in expediting the attainment of sustainable macroeconomic targets. By deploying a fixed-effect panel regression strategy and an instrumental variable technique on fifteen major Asia-Pacific economies for 31 years, this study negates the solitary role of FI factors in influencing the changing spectrum of SDG targets. This research further explores Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), SDGs, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the global financial crisis of 2008 as policy shocks/interventions and observes their positive contribution in shaping the results of sustainable economic development targets. Further, this study uniquely deploys a Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique on Central Bank’s annual reports, monetary policy statements, and press releases for the fifteen countries from 2000-2022 and analyzed 1815 documents through Topic Modeling. This paper concludes that central banks’ policy inclination toward sustainable macroeconomic development has increased over the years and substantially improved with the emergence of policy shocks. With the country clustering/grouping observed in this exploration, it is evident that central banks of the Asia Pacific countries have a unidirectional, however heterogeneous, intent to contribute to the broader national objectives of attaining SDGs.

Indian Railways Vision 2024: Purpose Appraisal Through an Empirical Exploration of the Key Driving Forces

August 2021- The Management Accountant

The story of the Indian Railways, one of the largest in the world, is one with a culmination of strong planning, able leadership, robust institutional support, deep-rooted utilitarian bias, and an imperishable vision.The all-encompassing strategic Vision 2024 document delineated the detailed blueprint to achieve 2024 MT loading by the year 2024. The statistical outcomes from this analysis claimed the strength and significance of dependence of the driving forces with the key observable outputs, whereas the predictive analysis has buttressed the future prospect. (DOI: 10.33516/maj.v56i8.34-37p)

A Qualitative Investigation on Natural Resource Accounting in India - A Misnomer or a Sustainable Trailblazer?

June 2021- The Management Accountant Journal 56(6):25

Natural Resource Accounting, a cycle of assessing the worth of environmental exhaustion and ecological depletion in view of economic engagements, is the need of the hour to secure sustainable economic growth by maintaining the broader theme of the triple bottom line (TBL) framework while ensuring three macro facets of people, planet, and profit. The deliberations at various levels, with coordinated effort in framing NRA guidelines in line with the best global practices in India, had substantially increased the awareness amongst stakeholders. (DOI: 10.33516/maj.v56i6.25-29p)

Reinvigorating Green Bond as an Alternative Energy Investment amidst Foreseeable Funding Crisis due to the Great Lockdown

June 2021- Doctoral Symposium 2020. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

The Great Lockdown due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has exasperated the prevailing situation beyond a mere health crisis and its economic impact is anticipated to be risking the prospect of the sustainability of the energy sector. Conducting a time-series analysis with five major countries, chosen in terms of their renewable-energy consumption and issuance of the green bond, this study imprecates that the lockdown would severely harm the investments in renewable energy, whereas, the long-term asset financing is less vulnerable to economic slowdowns compared to the gross investment. The study represents Green Bond as a rapidly growing long-term financial instrument for the private investors and capable of absorbing macroeconomic disturbances, hence, more propitious as a rescuer for the renewable energy sector for the future.

Complementarity of Real Economy and Financial Market in the Long Run: An Empirical Exploration of the Real Estate Sector in India by Contemplating a Comprehensive Sectoral Index

April 2023- Real Estate Finance

This research aims at finding the association between the real economy and its financial market counterpart in the real estate sector in India. Firstly, it would perform a sectoral analysis to establish a short/long-run relationship between the real economy and financial markets. Secondly, it would accomplish a focused pairwise comparison in this context to empirically demonstrate the relationship. Thirdly, this study would contemplate the development of a comprehensive index reflecting the health of the real estate sector by incorporating critical variables from both the real economy and financial market. Lastly, this research points out plausible sectoral variability in the stock movement alongside their causal relationship with the major macroeconomic indicators.

Unveiling Digital Health and Electronic Health Record - The Impending Mechanisms to Ameliorate Healthcare Efficacy in India

February 2021- The Management Accountant Journal 56(2):24

With sustainable economic growth potential and foreseeable improvement in public service delivery, India needs instruments to improve sectoral productivity in healthcare. In the modern world of technological advancements, digital intervention is inevitable to increase healthcare effectiveness. Digital health includes multiple digital care mediations ensuring the convergence of digital technologies with wellness, treatment, healthcare, and society to improve the efficacy of service delivery and make medicines more explicit and user-specific. DOI: 10.33516/maj.v56i2.24-27p

A comprehensive study of Employee Engagement: Contemplating 7-D model in view of NIFTY 50 companies

September 2019- International Journal of Advanced Engineering, Management and Science

The study has been initiated to unfold the conceptual reality of a commonly used terminology in organization behaviour study- employee engagement. The engagement of employees towards an organization is determined by their affective, cognitive and behavioural attributes which are in turn linked with various internal and external factors. These factors are identified and presented in various models with some specific focus area. Employee engagement index, the measuring indicator, is a reflection of multiple self-determining factors. This study unveiled the factors while analysing the annual reports for FY 2018-19 of NIFTY 50 companies. The key focus areas have been identified and an all-encompassing 7-Dimensional model has been proposed to determine the objective-oriented factors to prepare relevant questionnaire for ascertaining Employee Engagement Index.

DOI: 10.22161/ijaems.59.2

Academic and Professional Recognitions

Honorable Mentions

Awarded by The Institute of Cost Accountants of India (Statutory Body under an act of Parliament) as a Role Model of CMA Profession

December 12, 2024

Secured the contract for Proof of Concept (Project Blue Lagoon) under the Bank of Mauritius Innovation Hub initiative.

March 2025

Invited as Paper Presenter - 3rd International Conference on Economics and Finance by Nepal Rastra Bank

February 28-29, 2020

Qualified in National Eligibility Test (NET) (Management) with 99.83 percentile

July 2019

Outstanding Paper Award: International Conference on Innovation and Integration for Sustainable Development. FTU, Hanoi, Vietnam.

October 25, 2024

National Scholarship of Merit

2005

All India Rank 49- CMA Final Exam

February 2019

Regional Director’s Badge of Honor in Reserve Bank of India

January 2017

My Research Interests

For Independent, Collaborative and Institutional Research

Data Analytics

High-Frequency Indicators- Impact assessment, Financial Analytics- in STATA, EViews, R and Python

Advance Econometrics

Time Series Analysis, Panel Data Analysis, Advance Econometrics analysis- Application in R & Python

Corporate Governance

Data Analysis and Forecasting on Corporate Governance, Sectoral Heterogeneity Analysis

Financial Economics

Financial Markets, Economic Outlook, Macroeconomics

Energy Economics

Energy Inequality, Energy Trading, Energy Indices, Emission Trading

Development Economics

Inequality, Sectoral Studies, Socio-economic Indicators and Developmental studies

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Samuel Beckett

Let’s Connect

I’d love to hear from you on academic collaboration/feedback

avikghosh20@iitk.ac.in

+91-9007040867