Himanshu is Associate Professor in Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is also visiting fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. He has held visiting fellowships at London School of Economics, (British Academy Senior Visiting Fellow and C R Parekh Fellow), UNU-WIDER (Finland), Vrije Universiteit (Netherlands) and GREQAM (France). His primary area of research is development economics with focus on issues related to poverty, inequality, employment, food security, rural development and agrarian change. His current research interests revolve around poverty and inequality, structural change and changing patterns of employment and livelihood in rural India.

He has been involved with various government committees including Expert Group on Measurement of Poverty (Tendulkar committee), National Statistical Commission, Reserve Bank of India, National Human Rights Commission, Ministry of Rural Development, and the erstwhile Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.

His recent publications include “How Lives Change: Palanpur, India and Development Economics” with Nicholas Stern and Peter Lanjouw, published by Oxford University Press, London (2018). He has received the Sanjay Thakur Young Economist Award of the Indian Society of Labour Economics and Personnalité d' Avenir of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Himanshu received his PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.