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Dr Richa Saun
richa@ipeindia.org

Dr Richa Saun

Assistant Professor
Economics

Short Bio

  • As an Assistant Professor in Economics, I bring a wealth of teaching experience in Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, and Statistics, particularly engaging postgraduate management students in understanding the intricate world of Macroeconomics.

  • I aim to contribute insights that help unravel the complexities of internal and external factors influencing development and economic progress.

  • Let’s collaborate, discuss, and share ideas to build a better understanding of these pivotal issues!

Education

  • 2019–2024 PhD Economics University of Reading
    Thesis title : Essays on child development in the UK.
    Doctoral Advisors : Dr Carl Singleton, Dr Neha Hui and Dr Samantha Rawlings
  • 2014–2016 MA Economics with First Division
    Masters Dissertation title : Inequities in the Distribution of Safe Drinking Water in India.
  • 2011–2014 BA (Honours) with First Division in Economics

Experience

October 2024 - present at Institute of Public Enterprise
Assistant Professor in Economics
  • Currently teaching CC203 Macroeconomics to first-year PGDM-Banking and Finance students.
  • Simplifying the concepts taught in the lecture to make them easy to understand by the students, giving presentations on real-world examples, case studies to encourage students’ interest in the topic taught in the class.
  • Conducting group activities in class such as solving quizzes including questions on real-world ex- amples to encourage the students to inculcate the applicability of a concept.
January 2020 - March 2024 at University of Reading
Associate Lecturer
  • Taught EC113 Microeconomics, EC114 Macroeconomics, EC115 Statistics, CEM228 Construction Economics to first-year undergraduates.
  • Taught private tutorials in EC205 Intermediate Econometrics to second-year; and EC350 Macroe- conometrics and EC302 Advanced Macroeconomics to third-year undergraduate.
  • Simplifying the concepts taught in the lecture to make them easy to understand by the students, giving presentations on real-world examples to encourage students’ interest in the topic taught in the class.
  • Conducting group activities in class such as solving quizzes including questions on real-world ex- amples to encourage the students to inculcate the applicability of a concept.
August 2022 - November 2022 at University of Reading
Short-term Researcher
  • As a short-term researcher, I analysed the factors leading to differences in the academic perform- ances between international and home students; and disparity due to ethnicity (white and non-white students). The academic differences were measured in the form of awarding gaps for 2019-2021 year of admission of cohorts to the undergraduate economics courses with the Department of Eco- nomics.
July 2016 - November 2018 at Xceedance Pvt. Ltd
Risk Analyst
  • The RiskLink browser was used to analyse the catastrophic risk due to the exposure to natural perils. The coding of the risk was done in the RiskLink browser using Sequel commands, giving an estimate of the catastrophic risk to construction due to the type of construction materials used, weather and temperature, and soil conditions.
  • The AALs derived in the RiskLink browser gave the loss estimate due to the peril associated to a construction. The estimated value was utilised to provide an apt policy that could be proposed for insurance cover.
  • Working with Xceedance inculcated in me the professionalism and holistic experience of working in the corporate environment. During my corporate journey with Xceedance, I was engaged in or- ganising team meetings and worked hard to ensure the timely delivery of projects to the client. My corporate experience with Xceedance, provided a platform to interact with my peers and inculcated in me the importance of work-life balance.
May 2015 - July 2015 at Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)
Economics Intern
  • As an intern under the guidance of Dr Swadhin Mondal, I utilised the NSSO data sets to understand and calculate the percentage of households having access to safe drinking water across the loca- tions, socio-economic groups, and gender biases for collecting drinking water.
  • I used analytical methods such as probit in STATA to provide econometric and statistical analysis of the study.

Research Presentations

  • 06/2023 in Economics Department (SPIER), University of Reading
    Presentation title : The Impact of Individual Parental Bilingualism on Children’s Vocabulary and Behavioural Development in the UK.
  • 06/2022 at Annual Southern PhD Economics Conference in University of Reading
    Presentation title : The Impact of Individual Parental Bilingualism on Children’s Vocabulary and Behavioural Development in the UK.
  • 06/2022 in Economics Department (SPIER), University of Reading
    Presentation title : The Impact of Parental Residential Mobility Descisions on Child Development.
  • 11/2021 in Economics Department (SPIER), University of Reading
    Presentation title : The Impact of Individual Parental Bilingualism on Children’s Vocabulary and Behavioural Development in the UK.

Research Activities

  • Using Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) panel data to analyse the cognitive and non- cognitive outcomes from early age to young age of the children born in the UK dur- ing 2000 to early 2002. The child production function approach is used to analyse the impact of parental, and household inputs on the child cognitive and behavioural outcomes of the child.
  • By using the panel nature of the MCS, the research finds the impact of child’s lat- ent child outcomes on the child development outcomes at various ages. STATA is utilised to find the econometric analysis of the diverging cognitive outcomes for bilingual children in the early age compared with the monolingual counterparts.
  • The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) information, provided in the MCS is utilised to find the impact of household mobility on child’s cognitive and behavioural out- comes. The econometric analysis comprises the change in the IMD when changing residence. The analysis provides a marginal impact of moving to higher or lower IMDs between ages 3 to 5, on the changing cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes of the children between ages 3 to 7; 3 to 11 and 3 to 14 years.
  • The impact of COVID-19 on the youth’s educational preferences providesm an im- portant economic analysis of the impact of shocks faced by the youth on their edu- cational achievement paths. The preferences of the youth were evaluated by using the probabilistic approach.
  • Utilising the NSSO data to find the probability of the households having inequity in access to safe drinking water by using proximity indicators such as distance to the nearest source of drinking water. The study shows that 92% of the households have access to safe drinking water, still, there is a disparity among households that have access to safe drinking water. And we also observed that around 8-10% of households do not have sufficient access to safe drinking water overall in India.

Research Interests

My research interests lie at the intersection of Development Economics and Global Challenges, with a keen focus on:
  • Education Economics : Exploring how family roles, unexpected events, schools, and diverse cultural environments shape children's development and influence their academic performance.
  • Human Development Index and Women Empowerment : Investigating the dynamics of socio-economic progress and gender equality in fostering sustainable growth.
  • Climate Change and Economic Impact : Delving into the repercussions of climate change on global economies, with a special lens on its effects on developing nations.

Working Papers

  • Title - The Impact of Parental Residential Mobility on Child Development
  • Saun, R., Singleton, C., Rawlings, S. & Hui, N., The Impact of Parental Residential Mobility on Child Development. Population, Space and Place.
  • Title - The Impact of Individual Parental Bilingualism on Children’s Vocabulary and Behavioural Development in the UK.
  • Saun, R., Singleton, C., Hui, N. & Rawlings, S. The Impact of Individual Parental Bilingualism on Children’s Vocabulary and Behavioural Development in the UK.
  • Title - The Impact of COVID on the Youth's Preferences to Continue Education.
  • Saun, R., Singleton, C., Rawlings, S. & Hui, N. The Impact of COVID on the Youth’s Preferences to Continue Education.

Skills

  • Operating system : Windows, Macintosh
  • System languages : RiskLink Browser, Sequel commands, SAS basics-Data & Proc Steps, SAS functions text numeric, procedural commands, ODS system exporting the output to excel, txt & other formats. R data manipulation, R functions, R data analysis creating charts, graphs
  • Data Exposure : Millennium Cohort Survey (MCS) data-evaluated the panel nature of the data to find the impact of parental inputs and socioeconomic conditions on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of the child from an early age to a young age.
    National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data (India)- used the NSSO data set to understand and calculate the percentage of households having access to safe drinking water across different states, socio-economic groups, and gender biases for collecting drinking water in India.

Interest

  • R studio : Utilising the R platform to analyse the panel nature of the data.
  • RiskLink : Using catastrophic (CAT) modelling to report the measure of the property risk due to natural perils. Within the CAT modelling, I developed my interest in the use of Google imaging and coding to analyse the exposure of buildings to natural disasters and categorise the properties on a scale of low, medium and high risk.

Languages Known

  • Hindi (native)
  • English (fluent)
  • French (beginner)