UBC Sauder | Café & Connections with Swapnika Rachapalli

Why It Matters

Rachapalli’s insights link macro development challenges to practical skills students need for resilient international business careers, highlighting how policy and firm-level decisions affect growth and competitiveness. Training in supply-chain literacy and analytical thinking equips graduates to navigate and capitalize on evolving global trade dynamics.

Summary

Swapnika Rachapalli, assistant professor of strategy and business economics at UBC Sauder, discusses his research on why some countries remain poor and how productivity and innovation drive growth. He finds inefficiencies in resource allocation and barriers to innovation hinder poorer countries, and his work explores policies to overcome those hurdles. In the classroom he teaches managerial economics to help students understand market forces, firm behavior, and the broader welfare impacts of business decisions. For careers amid shifting global trade, he advises students to build analytical skills and deepen understanding of industry supply chains to manage and adapt to disruptions.

Original Description

This week on Café & Connections, Swapnika Rachapalli, Assistant Professor, Strategy & Business Economics Division, joins us to talk about why some countries thrive in global trade while others fall behind, and what students should understand about working across borders. ☕⁣

⁣From the forces reshaping global trade to skills that can help students navigate international opportunities, the conversation looks beyond the textbooks to explore how business, policy, and people intersect in changing global economy.⁣

Learn more about Swapnika here: https://www.sauder.ubc.ca/people/swapnika-rachapalli