I was born and raised in Madras. I did my postgraduate work at IIM Calcutta, worked at the Tata group in Jamshedpur, and taught at Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad before going to Carnegie Mellon for my PhD. My doctoral advisors were Scott Richard, Rex Thompson, Dennis Epple, and Robert Hodrick. I joined Columbia in 1980. My wife Rajeswari and I were married in 1981.

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My son Savitar is an assistant professor at the Finance department at Imperial College Business School. My daughter-in-law Sarah is a partner in the Financial Restructing Group at Milbank in London. My daughter Sriya works in climate transition and is a founder of TransitionZero. My son-in-law Thomas works at Meta in London.

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These are my grandkids, Ira and Adi: