@inproceedings{bib_When_2026, AUTHOR = {Sachdeva, Arush and Dasgupta, Anirban }, TITLE = {When Words Move Markets: Semantic Complexity and Sentiment in Central Bank Communication and Equity Volatility}, BOOKTITLE = {EMNLP Workshop}. YEAR = {2026}}

Central bank communications influence market expectations, but their linguistic attributes are inadequately examined in emerging markets. We examine 337 Reserve Bank of India Monetary Policy Committee documents (2010 2025), pairing the DAST framework for semantic complexity with a fine-tuned FinBERT that we validate directly on human-annotated central-bank text ($81.3%$ accuracy, macro-$F_1 = 0.784$, Cohen's $kappa = 0.714$ against a human majority vote), and relate the resulting textual features to minute-level and daily volatility in NIFTY indices. Within a pre-specified nine-test confirmatory family, negative-sentiment probability is associated with event-window equity volatility and CLS-based sentiment with event-window turbulence in India VIX; both survive Benjamini Hochberg correction, rank correlation, bootstrap intervals and regime-conditional controls, and both strengthen under a time-matched volatility baseline. A third candidate, attention concentration, is Bonferroni-significant under Pearson correlation yet reverses sign under Spearman and has a bootstrap interval spanning zero; we report it as a cautionary methodological result rather than a finding. A pre-specified February~20 Chow test and an endogenous break search near March~11, 2020 indicate pronounced COVID-period regime dependence. At the daily horizon a sentiment$times$complexity interaction yields only small exploratory in-sample gains that are not significant under heteroskedasticity-robust inference and do not improve out-of-sample prediction, even after controlling for document length. Textual features add in-sample explanatory power over a GARCH plus policy-rate baseline but no incremental out-of-sample predictive value on any index.

@inproceedings{bib_Deca_2025, AUTHOR = {Banerjee, Arindam and Dasgupta, Anirban }, TITLE = {Decarbonising Agriculture and Beyond: What is at Stake?}, BOOKTITLE = {Development and Change}. YEAR = {2025}}

This article argues that an effective rethinking of agriculture in the light of the climate emergency should aim to achieve more than decarbonization in agricultural production. The multidimensional ecological crisis precipitated by industrial agriculture can only be addressed through an integrated approach that seeks to restore the ecological balance through sustainable production practices. However, such a programme of reversing the ecological footprint generates its own tensions. Agriculture will continue to be a critical source of food and livelihoods which will necessitate trade-offs regarding the sector's role in restoring and maintaining ecological balance. Fundamental institutional change will be needed to reconcile the ecological regeneration process (in agriculture) with the goals of food production and livelihood provision. The existing political economy of corporate agrifood systems, the neoliberal state and contemporary agrarian social structures could create obstacles to such change. A concerted programme of public action will therefore be required to move forward.

@inproceedings{bib_Digi_2024, AUTHOR = {Dasgupta, Anirban and Krishnan, Radhika }, TITLE = {Digital Transformation and Labour: Locating Continuity and Change}, BOOKTITLE = {Indian Journal of Labour Economics}. YEAR = {2024}}

This paper is a short intervention in locating the concerns about labour in the present phase of digital transformation within the longer history of technological change. It engages with some key analytical frameworks in technology studies and development economics to identify the continuities in the present digital revolution with previous moments of equivalent technological change. It also highlights some crucial differences with the current digital turn. Finally, the paper uses available data and information to deliberate on the possible impact of the ongoing digital transformation on the employment question and the nature of work in India.