As a student of economics in Presidency College, Calcutta, he received valuable guidance from teachers like Bhabatosh Datta and Tapas Majumdar. After this he got enrolled into Calcutta University as an MA Economics student and stood first in the MA examination. Immediately upon completing the master's degree course, he went into teaching. He taught first at Calcutta University and then at The University of Burdwan, at Burdwan University as Head of Department of Economics. After teaching in Burdwan University for three years, he went to London, to do his PhD research at London School of Economics and Political Science. His PhD guides were Richard Lipsey and S. A. Ozga and the title of the thesis was Monetary Factors in the Theory of Growth. While at Burdwan University, he wrote a textbook in Bengali, which became quite popular among college teachers of Economics of those times, as well as among aspirant young economists. Rakshit joined Presidency College, Calcutta, as Professor of Economics in 1965 and was there for a long time, before joining Indian Statistical Institute Calcutta in 1992. During 1991-92, he was SBI Chair Professor of The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. He had also taught at Delhi School of Economics as visiting faculty long back in nineteen seventies, and taught at Erasmus University Rotterdam in early nineties.
Academic awards
Memorial Lectureship Medal
1996: Dr. Satyendranath Sen Memorial Lectureship Medal was conferred to Mihir Rakshit by The Asiatic Society.
Uses and Abuses of Instruments for Resource Mobilization: The Indian Experience, in Robert E.B. Lucas and Gaustav F. Panpanek, Effective Demand in a Developing Economy: Approaches and Issues, in Mihir Rakshit, The Analytical Framework of Keynes, in Krishna Bharadwaj and Sudipta Kaviraj, Underdevelopment of Commodity, Credit and Land Markets: Some Macroeconomic Implications, in Mihir Rakshit, Aspects of Foreign Trade in a Developing Economy, in Ashok Guha, Trade and Exchange Rate Policy with a Binding Foreign Exchange Constraint, in Pranab Bardhan, Mrinal Dutta-Choudhuri and T.N. Krishnan, Issues in Structural Adjustment of the Indian Economy, in Edmar L. Bacha, Development Economies: A Synoptic View, introductory chapter of Sukhomoy Chakravarty, Money, Credit and Government Finance in a Developing Economy, in A. Bose, M. Rakshit and A. Sinha, On the Inflationary Impact of Budget Deficit, in Deena Khatkhate, Globalisation of Capital Market: Some Analytical and Policy Issues, in Servaas Storm and C. W. M Naastepad, Some Macroeconomies of India's Reform Experience, in Kaushik Basu, Budget Deficit: Sustainability, Solvency and Optimality, in Amaresh Bagchi, . Some Macroeconomic Aspects of Foreign Trade: A Structuralist Perspective, in Sajal Lahiri and Pradip Maiti, India's Macroeconomic Puzzles, in K L Krishna and A Vaidyanathan, Budgetary Rules and Plan Financing: Revisiting the Fiscal Responsibility Act, in Research in Social Sciences: Availability and Utilization of Resources, in M. V. Nadkarni and R. S. Deshpande, Financial Crisis and Liquidity Trap: Some Theoretical and Policy Perspectives, in S Mahendra Dev and P. G. Babu, .
