Delhi-based Sher Mehta, an economic forecasting and applied economics postgraduate of Kingston University, UK and University of Antwerp, Belgium, is founder-CEO of India’s first Macroeconomics School ” an online global school of macroeconomics with a vocational orientation ” which offers short-term online courses in the subject.

Newspeg. On October 13, the Macroeconomics School was officially launched with a 180-hour online course comprising 10 modules, covering subjects such as GDP (gross domestic product), inflation and the AD-AS (aggregate demand and aggregate supply) model. Currently, 60 professionals and students are enrolled in the school’s online study programmes.

According to Mehta, the objective of the online school of economics for non-economists is to equip professionals, managers, investors and students with sufficient knowledge of economics to cope with rapid changes in the domestic and global business environments.

History. An economics graduate of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, Mehta began his career in consumer research with CCMC, a Mumbai-based consultancy firm, in 1994. After acquiring six years of valuable experience in consumer and market research, in 2001 he signed up for a Masters degree in applied economics at Kingston University and subsequently worked with several top-notch companies in London including media powerhouse WPP, London Transport, South-eastern Railways and CERAF Economic Research Centre. In 2013, he returned to India and set up the Macroeconomics School.

With my experience of over 17 years as an economist tracking the performance of economies worldwide, I realised I was well-equipped to provide utilitarian training in macroeconomics to Indian business managers, says Mehta, who is also a member of the American Economic Association and the Chinese Economists Society.

Direct talk. Macroeconomics is considered a highly technical and mathematical subject which cannot be related to fast changing business environments. In our online course, we have simplified macroeconomic issues related to GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates etc to make them applicable to everyday business management problems and situations. The course curriculum focuses on explaining this subject in a non-technical and digestible manner, so that business professionals can apply macroeconomics in their workplaces, explains Mehta.
Tuition fee. The online course is priced at Rs.5,000.

Future plans. Encouraged by the enthusiastic initial response, Mehta intends to add more courses to the school™s portfolio. œWe will be introducing more online study programmes. In addition, collaboration opportunities with international and national organisations are being evaluated to maximise our reach, he says.

God speed!

Somdev Thakur (Delhi)