Kerala Transforming: Labor and Trade Mobility in Times of Pandemic

This book examines Kerala’s recent development trajectory and highlights the impact of COVID-19 on its economy. It analyzes Kerala’s growth and structural transformation while engaging critically with issues related to employment and migration. The book delves into policies aimed at reintegrating return migrants into Kerala’s development process. It examines the implications of Free Trade Agreements and policies initiated by the Government of India under the WTO regime on agriculture. The chapters in the book also investigate the impact of the growth trajectories on distributional aspects of inequality and social mobility.

Timely and topical, the book will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of economics, development studies, trade, labour and migration, political economy, Kerala economy, and South Asian studies.

PL Beena is Professor at the Centre for Developmental Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. She was awarded South Asia visiting scholar fellowship from Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford before joining CDS. Her main areas of research are in the field of corporate mergers, Inward and outward FDI through CBM&As and antitrust policies; innovation and competition in the high-tech sectors under the new IPR regime; MSMEs and women-owned enterprises; WTO agreements and textile & clothing sector in South Asia; Globalization, SEZ, and industrialization in Kerala.

Thiagu Ranganathan is Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. Since his PhD at IIT Bombay, he has worked on issues in agricultural economics and development economics including agricultural price risk management and implications of water scarcity on rural livelihood diversification.