Overview
ANIRUDH KRISHNA is the Edgar T. Thompson Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University. His research investigates how poor communities and individuals in developing countries cope with the structural and personal constraints that result in poverty and powerlessness. His most recent book, The Broken Ladder: The Paradox and the Potential of India’s One-Billion (Cambridge University Press and Penguin Random House India), won the A. K. Coomaraswamy Award of the Association for Asian Studies. Krishna has authored or co-authored seven other books, including One Illness Away: Why People Become Poor and How they Escape Poverty, and more than eighty journal articles and book chapters. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Uppsala University, Sweden. Before returning to academia, Krishna spent 14 years managing diverse rural and urban development initiatives for the government of India. He has advised the World Bank, the United Nations, national governments, and non-government organizations. His recent research on talent ladders is described in this TEDx talk.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
What do communities feel about community-driven development? Learning from investigations in rural Malawi
Journal Article World Development Perspectives · June 1, 2025 Calls for bottom-up or community-driven development initiatives have been justified on the grounds that, compared to outsiders, rural communities are in better positions to determine their own priorities, utilize resources effectively, and underwrite benef ... Full text CiteSocial Mobility and Opportunity in India: A Review of the Academic Literature
Journal Article Economic and Political Weekly · December 21, 2024 A total of 161 academic publications on the subjects of social mobility and opportunity in India that have appeared since the early 1960s and are concerned with one or more of educational, occupational, and income mobility, social status, and opportunity p ... CiteUneven Gains and Bottom-50 Districts: Intergenerational Educational Mobility in India
Journal Article Economic and Political Weekly · October 21, 2023 Using data from the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21), it is found that younger individuals (20–40 years) have made impressive gains in education. The average young Indian has a high school education—much better than their mother’s generation that ... Open Access CiteRecent Grants
Social Networks, Property Rights and Public Services in the Slums of Patna and Jaipur
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by International Growth Centre · 2015 - 2017Organizing Voluntary Action in Support of Poverty Reduction
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation · 2001 - 2002View All Grants