Dr. Payal Seth is the Chief Research Officer at Pahlé India Foundation (PIF), where she sets the organisation’s research agenda and safeguards the quality and rigour of its work across verticals. She has introduced PIF’s research quality and publication protocol, supported by an in-house peer-review platform. An economist and econometrician with over a decade of experience, she is an alumna of Cornell University and the Delhi School of Economics.
For the past two years, Payal has served as Lead Economist and Head of CoDED, PIF’s Centre of Data for Economic Decision-making (CoDED). She built it into a data and policy partner for governments across more than eight states, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Daman & Diu. CoDED has led flagship projects for Chief Ministers’ offices. The CoDED team has pioneered bottom-up District Domestic Product estimates, giving states a district-level view of growth to guide budget allocation and the design of welfare schemes. It also built real-time GSDP nowcasting models using high-frequency data such as GST, electricity consumption, UPI transactions and satellite night-time lights, and trained State Directorates of Economics and Statistics to produce these estimates themselves. This work led to a Memorandum of Understanding between PIF and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to take these capabilities to more states.
Payal has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, including Economic & Political Weekly, Food Policy, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, PLOS ONE and the Indian Economic Journal, with around ~170 citation. She has published 100+ op-eds on India’s economy, official statistics and public health in leading national dailies, including Mint, Business Standard, The Hindu BusinessLine, The Financial Express and The Indian Express.
She can be reached at payal.seth@pahleindia.org.