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Photo of Chirantan Chatterjee

Chirantan Chatterjee

Ph.D. Student

PhD Candidate

Voice: 412.708.4322
Email: cchatter@andrew.cmu.edu
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)

Biography

For starters, here is a funny way of looking at the PhD experience by one of my own favorite singers, Frank Sinatra:

"I'm supposed to have a Ph.D on the subject of women. But the truth is I've flunked more often than not. I'm very fond of women, i admire them. But, like all men, I dont understand them."

In a similar vein, i am fond of the issues i am investigating in my PhD, yet am not quite sure i understand them in entirety. As historians of technology and innovation like CMU's own Prof. David Hounshell or Prof. Joel Mokyr would argue - you are not alone kid! :) 

Nonetheless, since you are interested, I am broadly into understanding issues around innovation, entrepreneurship and the role of IPR in economic development. Working with Professor Lee Branstetter and Professor Ashish Arora at the Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon - my current focus is on the Indian Pharmaceutical industry, which has offered researchers a very interesting natural experiment setting to test the value of strong patents to provide incentives for innovation.

My first paper investigates returns to innovation of my sample Indian drug firms and finds rising returns to R & D as measured by market value of R & D of these firms. This came about as stronger patents were implemented in India ever since the country signed the WTO-TRIPs agreement in late 1994 and implemented product patents in 2005.

More specifically, the technologically progressive firms in my sample witness statistically significant rising returns to R & D as measured by their market valuation of R & D investments. A second working paper is looking at Exporting Behaviour and Firm Productivity in the same setting. I am hoping that this research trajectory on Indian pharmaceuticals will richen up my perspectives on the role of innovation, entrepreneurship and IP rights for economic development - in conformity or perhaps in disagreement with the Sinatraesque world.

For my papers see here:

1. A link to the first paper titled "Fundamental Patent Reforms and the Private Returns to R & D - The case of Indian Pharmaceuticals" - version presented at 2008 IIOC Conference is here:
https://zeus.econ.umd.edu/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=IIOC2007&paper_id=352

2. An offshoot of the above work (coauthored with Professor Arora and Professor Branstetter) was presented at the 2008 NBER Conference on Location of Biopharmaceutical Activity, it was titled, "Strong Medicine:? Patent Reform and the Emergence of a Research-Driven Pharmaceutical Industry in India" and a copy is available here:
 

http://www.nber.org/~confer/2008/LBA/branstetter.pdf.

3. My current work is on "Investigating Firm Productivity and Exporting Behavior in Indian Pharmaceutical firms", a version of this is available below.

4. I also contributed to a special edition of a book looking at Asian Pharmaceuticals:
"The Historical Evolution of Post-TRIPS Modern Indian Pharmaceuticals", in Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific. K. Eggleston, ed. Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, forthcoming in 2009 from Brookings Press.

And while we are at it, here are some of my journalistic writings for The Economic Times, India between 2003 and 2005:

  • Innovation in Asia:

http://chirantan.googlepages.com/advantageAsia.jpg

  • Public Policy Education in India:

http://pages.google.com/edit/chirantan/Public_Policy_Education_in_India___E.pdf

  • Global trends in family owned businesses:

http://pages.google.com/edit/chirantan/FameWealth.jpg

  • The market for MBAs in Indian IIMs:

http://pages.google.com/edit/chirantan/Education_Business_Front_Page.jpg

  • The I-word, 'Innovation', in firm annual reports:

http://pages.google.com/edit/chirantan/I-Word_Front_Page.jpg

  • Geographic industrial agglomeration along coastal India:

http://pages.google.com/edit/chirantan/wider-in-media-2005-1.pdf


 

These days am trying to propose for my dissertation, extending my work on Indian pharmaceuticals and looking at its impact on Western pharmaceutical markets. If you want to know more on this, feel free to drop me a buzz, and trust me, i will try my best to be a Sinatra as he was in his singing, not in his quotes :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research Interest(s)

International Health and R & D economics in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Global Economic Development and Intellectual Property, North-South Technology Transfer issues between developed and emerging economies.

Education

BTech (IIT Roorkee, India)
MBA (IIM Calcutta, India)

Working Papers