Arvind Panagariya is the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the Department of International and Public Affairs and of Economics in Columbia Univesity's School of International and Public Affairs, New York. According to his biography on the SIPA website, he was formerly a professor of economics and codirector of the Center for International and Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank. He has also advised the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UNCTAD in various capacities. Panagariya has written or edited more than a half-dozen books, including The Economics of Preferential Trade Agreements with Jagdish Bhagwati (1996); The Global Trading System and Developing Asia with M.G. Quibria and N. Rao (1997); and Lectures on International Trade with J. Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan (1998). A collection of his essays on regionalism appeared under the title Regionalism in Trade Policy: Essays on Preferential Trading (1999). Panagariya is the founding editor of the Journal of Policy Reform, which he edited with Dani Rodrik (1996–2001). He is currently an associate editor of Economics and Politics. His technical papers have appeared in the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of International Economics, and International Economic Review, while his policy papers have appeared in the World Economy, Journal of International Affairs and Finance and Development.

Panagariya writes a monthly column in the Economic Times, India's top financial daily. He has also written guest columns in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, India Today, and Outlook. He has appeared on the Jim Lehrer Newshour (U.S.A.), CNN (Asia), CNBC (Asia), CNBC (India), Reuters TV (Asia), Bloomberg TV (Asia), NDTV (India), Aaj Tak (India), Door Darshan (National-India), Chicago Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, and BBC Radio.

Panagariya holds a BA from Rajasthan University (1971) and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University (1978).