Today, we speak about the future of economics as a subject in a post-Covid world with Dr J. Mohan Rao, a renowned economist. In this conversation, Mohan talks to me about his long journey in economics as a researcher and teacher, and the way he has seen the subject of economics evolving. He speaks about the evolution of the subject of economics, how the class struggle in the society has influenced the way the subject of economics shifted grounds by the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the split between political economy and economics, why he remains underwhelmed by the new fads in the field of economics and the importance of trying to create alternatives to the dominance of mainstream economics. Mohan Rao retired in 2019 as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He

completed his PhD from the Harvard University in 1982, and later taught at Harvard, Boston University, UMass Amherst, University of

Rome, NIAS Bangalore, Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai and the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New

Delhi. Between 2006 and 2007, he also served as the Director of the

Institute of South Asian Studies attached to the National University

of Singapore. His research has focused largely on agricultural economics, development

economics and the Indian Economy.