Madras School of Economics, Chennai

Within a relatively short time span, MSE, founded by highly- respected economist the late Raja J. Chelliah in 1993, has established a reputation which is almost on a par with the prestigious Delhi School of Economics Sited in Kottur, an upscale suburb of the southern port city of Chennai (pop: 4.2 million), the aesthetically designed campus of the Madras School of Economics (MSE) with its grey stone buildings, charming arcades supported by stone pillars and lush ambience, has been constructed on a generous four-acre campus insu-lated from the din and bustle of the city. Founded by the late Dr. Raja J. Chelliah, a highly-respected economist and public finance expert, MSE was registered as a charitable society in 1993 under the Societies Registration Act, 1975. A specialist school promoted to teach and research economics at the postgrad and doctoral levels, MSE admitted its first batch of 11 postgrad students in 2000. Currently it offers two postgrad programmes in general and financial economics and doctoral programmes to 110 students. Promoted as a privately funded autonomous institution with a grant of Rs.3 crore from the Central government, MSEs primary objective is to nurture high-quality economics research. MSE is backed by a consortium of renowned academics, eminent economists, prominent industrialists, and heads of well-known financial institutions. Among them: A.C. Muthiah, chairman and president, Southern Petrochemicals Industries Corporation Ltd, Chennai; Dr. C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister; N. Vaghul, chairman of ICICI Bank, Mumbai. Since then, over the past 15 years MSE has built itself an excellent reputation. In 2003, the school of economics was awarded the highest ‘A grade rating of the Bangalore-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), after it was designated a Centre of Excellence in environmental economics by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in 2002. MSE also enjoys the unique status of being an official ENVIS (Environmental Information System) Centre for environ-mental economics, and also coordinates a programme on trade and environment to provide policy inputs to MoEF. Consequently within a relatively short time span, MSE has established a reputation which is almost on a par with the prestigious Delhi School of Economics, offering postgrad study programmes which differ distinctly from the courses offered by the university system, because of a sharper focus on quantitative techniques. Therefore, a strong aptitude for mathematics and quantitative analysis is the prerequisite of admission into MSE. Moreover, despite stringent state government regulations of admi-ssion which mandate 70 percent reservation of seats in favour of socio-economically backward classes/castes, the college has maintained excellent academic standards. Wholly funded by student fees (subsidised and approved by its affiliating Anna University), interest income from its endowment corpus (Rs.11 crore) contributed by corporate India and financial institu-tions, and research projects undertaken by the faculty, MSE delivers high quality education to 110 postgrad students mentored by 18 highly-qualified fulltime faculty and ten visiting professors from around the country and abroad. We believe that economics is a science which can be applied to…