He has published widely on free trade as well as on the development of the Indian economy[5] He is the brother of noted neurologist and medical researcher Dr. Ashok Panagariya.

He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University under the doctoral supervision of Peter Kenen and William Hoban Branson.

He was also a member of Committee on the Center on Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRL) appointed by the Governor, Reserve bank of India (RBI).

He was the Founding Editor of the journal-India Policy Forum launched in 2004 by the Brookings Institution and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).

[9] Papers written by him for the World Bank and IMF usually promote the idea of trade liberalisation and privatization of state owned enterprises of India for an investment and exports driven economic growth.

On 5 January 2015, he was appointed vice-chairman of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, the replacement for the Planning Commission.

[15] He was born in 1952 as a son of Baloo Lal Panagariya, who migrated from a Bhilwara to Jaipur where he edited a local newspaper Lokvani.