Ph. D. from the University of Bombay (Mumbai now) on the subject of

“Tax Burden on Farm and Non-Farm Sectors in India (An Inter-Sectoral and Inter-Class Analysis)” – 1970.

Life Member:  Indian Association for Research in National Income and Wealth (IARNIW)

[Currently Member in the Editorial Board of IARNIW]

Dr S.L. Shetty was Director of EPW Research Foundation (EPWRF) from its inception in March 1993, and continued in that capacity for 16 years, that is, until April 2009.  Since then he has been associated with the institution as Adviser.

Earlier Dr Shetty served the Reserve Bank of India for about 24 years and retired as Adviser-in-Charge of its Department of Economic Analysis and Policy.  While in the RBI, apart from spending 4 years on a foreign assignment with the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu (1983-87), Dr. Shetty worked as a faculty of the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM) for two years (1977-79) on a sabbatical from the central bank.  It was during this period that he wrote the well-known publication Structural Retrogression in the Indian Economy since the Mid-1960s (February 1978).  Also, a detailed study on the “Performance of Banks since Nationalisation: Promise and Reality” was completed during this period and it was published in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in August 1978.

In the EPWRF, Dr Shetty has been engaged in data base studies on different segments of the Indian macro economy; these studies have included the building up and analysis of long time series for the post-Independence period for various segments of the economy such as, National Accounts Statistics, Annual Survey of Industries, Domestic Product of States of India, Banking Statistics, Price Indices, Central and State Finances, Export-Import Trade, Exchange Rate of theRupee and Poverty Estimates. A number of research papers have been produced by Dr. Shetty from out of these studies. Overtime, the EPWRF has expanded the scope of these long time series into an online data base on different aspects of the Indian economy presently covering nearly 20 subject areas.

Dr Shetty has completed editing a large 475-page literature review study on “Microfinance in India” which has been published by the Academic Foundation (2012).The study brings out the dichotomy between the formal financial system and India’s economic structure which is dominated by massive poor, informal and vulnerable groups, the role of the financial sector in serving the informal credit markets, the limitations of microfinance in dealing with wider spectrum of informal sectors, and puts forth suggestions for resurrection of the rural financial architecture  and within it, for expanding the role of organised banks in promoting self-help groups (SHGs) and for retaining the “service” character of  microfinance movement, which also the Malegam Committee sought to emphasize.Dr. Shetty has published yet another study on “Agricultural Credit in India:Trends, Regional Spreads andDatabase Issues” on behalf of theNational Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Mumbai, 2014. Renewing his interest in inequality issues, Dr Shetty has published in recent yearsthree major articles in reputed journals on the subject, bringing out growing inequalities in incomes, assets and economic opportunities in India and how public policies have neglected them and to an extent have even contributed to them. Based on his empirical studies and participation in policy debates, Dr. Shetty has been nominated to serve on a few committees appointed by the RBI, NABARD and the Government of India.