Economic Policy | Independent Indian: Work & Life of Dr Subroto Roy

Cambridge Economics & the Disputation in India’s Economic Policy

May 19, 2013 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook 19 May 2013

“Manmohan and Sonia have violated Rajiv Gandhi’s intended reforms; the Communists have been appeased or bought; the BJP is incompetent”

is what I said in Sep 2007 in an op-ed in The Statesman. I have to say it again, adding Amartya Sen too for his backing of the so-called “Food Security Bill”…

But taking Sonia and Rajiv out of it all, we are left with a battle from within Cambridge economics, viz,

Sen and Singh (disciples of Joan Robinson, Kaldor, Dobb et al in the 1950s)
vs
myself … in my PhD thesis of 1981 under Frank Hahn...

“I have a student called Suby Roy…”: Reflections on Frank Hahn (1925-2013), my master in economic theory

January 31, 2013 — drsubrotoroy

1. “What was relatively weak at LSE was general economic theory. We were good at deriving the Best Linear Unbiased Estimator but left unsatisfied with our grasp of the theory of value that constituted the roots of our discipline. I managed a First and was admitted to Cambridge as a Research Student in 1976, where fortune had Frank Hahn choose me as a student. That at the outset was protection from the communist cabal that ran “development economics” with whom almost all the Indians ended up. I was wholly impecunious in my first year as a Research Student, and had to, for example, proof-read Arrow and Hahn’s General Competitive Analysis for its second edition to receive 50 pounds sterling from Hahn which kept me going for a short time. My exposure to Hahn’s subtle, refined and depthless thought as an economist of the first rank led to fascination and wonderment, and I read and re-read his “On the notion of equilibrium in economics”, “On the foundations of monetary theory”, “Keynesian economics and general equilibrium theory” and other clear-headed attempts to integrate the theory of value with the theory of money — a project Wicksell and Marshall had (perhaps wisely) not attempted and Keynes, Hicks and Patinkin had failed at.

Hahn insisted a central question was to ask how money, which is intrinsically worthless, can have any value, why anyone should want to hold it. The practical relevance of this question is manifest. India today in 2007 has an inconvertible currency, vast and growing public debt financed by money-creation, and more than two dozen fiscally irresponsible State governments without money-creating powers. While pondering, over the last decade, whether India’s governance could be made more responsible if States were given money-creating powers, I have constantly had Hahn’s seemingly abstruse question from decades ago in mind, as to why anyone will want to hold State currencies in India, as to whether the equilibrium price of those monies would be positive. (Lerner in fact gave an answer in 1945 when he suggested that any money would have value if its issuer agreed to collect liabilities in it — as a State collects taxes – and that may be the simplest road that bridges the real/monetary divide.)

Though we were never personal friends and I did not ingratiate myself with Hahn as did many others, my respect for him only grew when I saw how he had protected my inchoate classical liberal arguments for India from the most vicious attacks that they were open to from the communists. My doctoral thesis, initially titled “A monetary theory for India”, had to be altered due to paucity of monetary data at the time, as well as the fact India’s problems of political economy and allocation of real resources were more pressing, and so the thesis became “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”. When no internal examiner could be found, the University of Cambridge, at Hahn’s insistence, showed its greatness by appointing two externals: C. J. Bliss at Oxford and T. W. Hutchison at Birmingham, former students of Hahn and Joan Robinson respectively. My thesis received the most rigorous and fairest imaginable evaluation from them…”

2. “Frank Hahn believed in throwing students in at the deep end — or so it seemed to me when, within weeks of my arrival at Cambridge as a 21 year old Research Student, he insisted I present my initial ideas on the foundations of monetary theory at his weekly seminar.

I was petrified but somehow managed to give a half-decent lecture before a standing-room only audience in what used to be called the “Keynes Room” in the Cambridge Economics Department. (It helped that a few months earlier, as a final year undergraduate at the LSE, I had been required to give a lecture at ACL Day’s Seminar on international monetary economics. It is a practice I came to follow with my students in due course, as there may be no substitute in learning how to think while standing up.) I shall try to publish exactly what I said at my Hahn-seminar when I find the document; broadly, it had to do with the crucial problem Hahn had identified a dozen years earlier in Patinkin’s work by asking what was required for the price of money to be positive in a general equilibrium, i.e. why do people everywhere hold and use money when it is intrinsically worthless. Patinkin’s utility function had real money balances appearing along with other goods; Hahn’s “On Some Problems of Proving the Existence of an Equilibrium in a Monetary Economy” in Theory of Interest Rates (1965), was the decisive criticism of this, where he showed that Patinkin’s formulation could not ensure a non-zero price for money in equilibrium. Hence Patinkin’s was a model in which money might not be held and therefore failed a vital requirement of a monetary economy. The announcement of my seminar was scribbled by a young Cambridge lecturer named Oliver Hart, later a distinguished member of MIT and Harvard University.”

3. Then there was Sraffa…I saw him many a time, in the Marshall Library… He would smile very broadly at me and without saying anything indicate with his hand to invite me to his office.. I fled in some fear… It was very stupid of me of course… Joan Robinson cornered me once and took me into the office she shared with EAG… She came at me for an hour or so wishing to supervise me, I kept declining politely… saying I was with Frank Hahn and wished to work on money… “What does Frankie know about India?” she said… I said I did not know but he did know about monetary theory and that was what I needed for India; I also said I did not think much about the Indian Marxists she had supervised… and mentioned a prominent name… she said about him, “Yes most of what he does can go straight into the dustbin”…

4. “I had been attracted to Cambridge partly by its old reputation for philosophy, especially that of Wittgenstein. But I met no worthwhile philosophers there until a few months before I was to leave for the United States in 1980, when I chanced upon the work of Renford Bambrough. Hahn had challenged me with the question, “how are you so sure your value judgements promoting liberty blah-blah are better than those of Chenery and the development economists?” It was a question that led inevitably to ethics and its epistemology — when I chanced upon Bambrough’s work, and that of his philosophical master, John Wisdom, the immense expanse of metaphysics (or ontology) opened up as well. “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes, He star’d at the Pacific…””

5. “I went to Virginia because James M. Buchanan was there, and he, along with FA Hayek, were whom Hahn decided to write on my behalf. Hayek said he was too old to accept me but wrote me kind and generous letters praising and hence encouraging my inchoate liberal thoughts and arguments. Buchanan was welcoming and I learnt much from him and his colleagues about the realities of public finance and democratic politics, which I quickly applied in my work on India…” Hahn told me he did not know Buchanan but he did know Hayek well and that his wife Dorothy had been an original member of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947 or 1948. Hence I am amused reading a prominent NYU “American Austrian” say about Frank’s passing “I do think economics would have been better off if the Arrow-Debreu-Hahn approach had not been taken so seriously by the profession. I think it turned out to be an intellectual straight-jacket that prevented the discussion of valuable outside-the-box ideas”, and am tempted to paraphrase the closing lines of Tractatus — “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent/About what one can not speak, one must remain silent” — to read “Of that of which we are ignorant, we should at least try not to gas about…” Hahn and Hayek were friends, from when Hayek taught at the London School of Economics in Robbins’ seminar, and Hahn was Robbins’ doctoral student.

6. “The Hawaii project manuscript contained inter alia a memorandum by Milton Friedman done at the request of the Government of India in November 1955, which had been suppressed for 34 years until I published it in May 1989. Milton and Rose Friedman refer to this in their memoirs Two Lucky People (Chicago 1998). Peter Bauer had told me of the existence of Friedman’s document during my doctoral work at Cambridge under Frank Hahn in the late 1970s, as did N. Georgescu-Roegen in America. Those were years in which Brezhnev still ruled in the Kremlin, Gorbachev was yet to emerge, Indira Gandhi and her pro-Moscow advisers were ensconced in New Delhi, and not even the CIA had imagined the Berlin Wall would fall and the Cold War would be over within a decade. It was academic suicide at the time to argue in favour of classical liberal economics even in the West. As a 22-year-old Visiting Assistant Professor at the Delhi School of Economics in 1977, I was greeted with uproarious laughter of senior professors when I spoke of a possible free market in foreign exchange. Cambridge was a place where Indian economists went to study the exploitation of peasants in Indian agriculture before returning to their friends in the well-known bastions of such matters in Delhi and Calcutta. It was not a place where Indian (let alone Bengali) doctoral students in economics mentioned the unmentionable names of Hayek or Friedman or Buchanan, and insisted upon giving their works a hearing. My original doctoral topic in 1976 “A monetary theory for India” had to be altered not only due to paucity of monetary data at the time but because the problems of India’s political economy and allocation of resources in the real economy were far more pressing. The thesis that emerged in 1982 “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India” was a full frontal assault from the point of view of microeconomic theory on the “development planning” to which everyone routinely declared their fidelity, from New Delhi’s bureaucrats and Oxford’s “development” school to McNamara’s World Bank with its Indian staffers. Frank Hahn protected my inchoate liberal arguments for India; and when no internal examiner could be found, Cambridge showed its greatness by appointing two externals, Bliss at Oxford and Hutchison at Birmingham, both Cambridge men.”

7. “I have a student called Suby Roy…” Frank sends me to America in 1980 to work with Jim Buchanan… One letter from him was all it took…

And then five years later in 1985 he calls me “probably the outstanding young Hayekian”, says I had brought “a good knowledge of economics and of philosophy to bear on the literature on economic planning”, had “a good knowledge of economic theory” and that my “critique of Development Economics was powerful not only on methodological but also on economic theory grounds” — all that to me has been a special source of delight.

We did not meet often after I left Cambridge but he wrote very kindly always, and finally said, hearing of my travails and troubles and adventures, “well you are having an interesting life…”…

In America, I once met Robert M Solow in a hotel elevator as we were on a panel at a conference together; I introduced myself as Hahn’s student… “Aren’t you lucky?” said Solow with a smile…and he was right… I was lucky…

I said of Milton Friedman that he had been “the greatest economist after John Maynard Keynes”; Milton’s critic, Frank Hahn, may have been the greatest economic theorist of modern times.

Frank Hahn (1925-2013)

Sonia Gandhi on the origins of the 1991 economic reform (Updated 17 Dec 2012)

December 17, 2012 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook 17 Dec 2012

Subroto Roy says to Mr Sathe, Shekhar, changing the direction of a ship of state is very hard, knowing in which direction it should change and to what degree is even harder; it has rarely been something that can be done without random shocks arising let aside the power of vested interests. Had Rajiv Gandhi lived to form a new Government, I have little doubt I would have led the reform that I had chalked out for him and that he had approved of; Sonia Gandhi would have remained the housewife, mother and grandmother that she had preferred to be and not been made into the Queen of India by her party; Manmohan Singh had left India in 1987 for the Nyerere project and it had been rumoured at the time that had been slightly to do with him protesting, to the extent that he ever has protested anything, the anti-Sikh pogrom that some of Rajiv’s friends had apparently unleashed after Indira’s killing; he returned in Nov 1990, joined Chandrashekhar in Dec 1990, left Chandrashekhar in March 1991 when elections were announced and was biding his time as head of the UPSC; had Rajiv Gandhi lived, Manmohan Singh would have had a governor’s career path, becoming the governor of this or that state one after next; he would not have been brought into the economic reform process which he had had nothing to do with originating; and finally Pranab Mukherjee, who had been made to leave the Congress when Rajiv took over, would have been likely rehabilitated slowly but would not have come to control the working of the party as he did. I think I have said in my Lok Sabha TV interview that there have been many microeconomic improvements arising from technological progress in the last 20+ years but the macroeconomic and monetary situation is grim, because at root the fiscal situation remains incoherent and confused. I do not see anyone in Manmohan Singh’s entourage among all his many acolytes and flatterers and apologists who is able to get to these root problems.

Facebook March 26 2011

Mr Chidambaram knows better than that!

by Subroto Roy

I remain amused by the powers-that-be in Delhi continuing to attempt to deny me credit for the origins of the 1991 economic reform based on the UH-Manoa perestroika-for-India project I had led 1986-1992, and the results of which I brought with me to my first meeting with Rajiv Gandhi on September 18 1990.

After almost a decade of relentless pressure from me for the truth to be told, Rajiv’s widow on December 28 2009 finally admitted her late husband “left his personal imprint on the (Congress) party’s manifesto of 1991″.

Now yesterday, March 25 2011, Mr Chidambaram has admitted “The Congress manifesto prepared for the general elections in 1991 did talk about an agenda of reforms but with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, there was no certainty that these would have remained on the agenda”.

Well, Mr Chidambaram, you know better than that! Did you not yourself say in Tokyo in April 1993 that the reform “was not miraculous” but based on “rewriting of the Congress manifesto while in Opposition. We were ready when we came back to power in 1991″? (And as for those two former World Bank types with you on the podium yesterday, one was out of the country and cannot possibly claim to have been part of anything, though he had begged me to come to Hawaii and I had said sorry, no; the other, well, perhaps the less said about his capacity for self-delusion the better for India (though his shift from Sovietism to Americanism and his power to waffle endlessly on TV etc is a true bureaucratic marvel). The third man on the podium with you was someone I had tried hard to get to come to Hawaii, upon recommendation of Sukhamoy Chakravarty; but he could not make it; he though has inevitably lost his way for some years now with his wish to stay in Delhi much longer than he should ever have done.)

The simple truth is very simple: the positive change in direction of the Congress Party’s economic and other thinking occurred due to the Congress President’s meeting with me on September 18 1990, where I gave him the perestroika-for-India project results and advised him to look to the future and write a fresh and modern manifesto. He agreed with his actions the following week, and subsequently, viz., Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform. Later, after his assassination, against which I had warned, the process came to be taken over by the greedy and the mendacious (specifically, organised big business lobbies, big bureaucrats and politicians, Soviet sleeper agents etc). So the truth got lost and has had to be reconstructed slowly.

(And puleaaase, baba, Manmohan Singh or any of his acolytes had nothing to do with it! Not in the loop! After all, if they had had the creativity and economic knowledge and intellectual honesty and courage, during all their years and decades in the Government of India and sundry international bureaucracies, to do what we did, they would and should have done it! But there is just no evidence that they did, sorry baba! Time almost to say Uff!)

My colleague Ted James who with me led the Hawaii projects said of it in January 2010 a few months before he tragically died: “Seldom are significant reforms imposed successfully by international bureaucracies. Most often they are the result of indigenous actors motivated by domestic imperatives. I believe this was the case in India in 1991. It may have been fortuitous that Dr. Roy gained an audience with a receptive Rajiv Gandhi in 1990 but it was not luck that he was prepared with a well-thought out program; this arose from years of careful thought and debate on the matter.”

Why all this is important is not because I want a national award and due recognition etc, which I won’t of course mind getting, but because Dr Singh, Mr Chidambaram et al (as well as all the BJP and CPI-M etc people in Delhi too) have rather ruined the fisc, the currency and the exchanges…. It may be hopeless….

From Facebook December 20 2010

Subroto Roy is glad to hear today, for the first time, Dr Manmohan Singh explicitly praise Rajiv Gandhi for chalking out the roadmap of the 1991 economic reform, as Rajiv did thanks to his encounter with the UH-Manoa project I had led since 1986. At last year’s Congress Party meet, Sonia Gandhi for the first time on Dec 28 2009 said Rajiv “left his personal imprint on the (Congress) party’s manifesto of 1991″. Better late than never.

From Facebook Sep 20 2010

Subroto Roy notes the 20th anniversary just passed over the weekend of Rajiv Gandhi’s encounter with the UH-Manoa peresteroika-for-India project that I had led. On Sep 18 1990, when Rajiv and I first met, Dr Manmohan Singh was not physically in India, ending his final assignment before retirement with Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Of the others whom Rajiv appointed along with myself as advisers a week later on Sep 25 1990, at least one has recently proved to be mendacious in print — stating Manmohan Singh and not I was in the group that got created on Sep 25 following my single meeting with Rajiv on Sep 18! — and I had to expose the mendacity; he has not sued me for calling him a liar because, of course, truth is a first and full defence against a charge of defamation!

National policy should not float on self-delusion and flattery and myth and mendacity — or grave problems like Kashmir and macroeconomic inflation are the inevitable result.

I have met Mrs Sonia Gandhi once in December 1991 when I gave her a tape of her husband’s conversations with me during the Gulf War; she later in 2001 was kind enough to write acknowledging receipt of an earlier draft of this story.

From Facebook (December 29, 2009):

Subroto Roy is pleased that Sonia Gandhi has finally said, yesterday (December 28 2009), her late husband Rajiv “left his personal imprint on the (Congress) party’s manifesto of 1991″. He did — thanks to his encounter with me dated Sep 18 1990 where I gave him a copy of the results of the perestroika-for-India project I had led at a US university since 1986, as well as my May 29 1984 IEA monograph that had provoked the lead editorial of *The Times* of London when first published (based on my Cambridge doctoral thesis under Frank Hahn). I was very warmly introduced to Rajiv thanks to Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Bar-at-Law, senior Congress Party politician and my senior counsel in India’s Supreme Court during a grave international custody battle. The story of my encounter with Rajiv has now been fully told in the Indian newspapers, at my blog/website, and reproduced in my Notes at Facebook. Perhaps Mrs Gandhi will realise too some time that Manmohan Singh (or any of his prominent acolytes and flatterers among Indian bureaucrats, businessmen and journalists) had nothing to do with the origins of the 1991 reform — there was a reason I did not invite them to Manoa,

namely, I had felt they had been part of the problem, not the solution.

Dr Singh and I have met twice and I hold him in high personal regard — in the late summer of 1973 in Paris he kindly consented to visit our then-home there at my father’s request to discuss economics with me before I, as an 18 year old, left for my freshman year at the London School of Economics; we ended up having a tense debate on the merits (as he saw them) and demerits (as I saw them) of the Soviet influence on Indian economic policy-making until that time; then we met twenty years later in Washington in the Fall of 1993 when the Indian Ambassador, the same Barrister Ray, introduced me to him as the person on whose laptop the 1991 manifesto had been written. To his credit, he himself has not attributed to himself any of the original economic thought his many flatterers have attributed to him since 1991 though he has not denounced them either, or at least is yet to do so. My rather critical views on his economics and politics are available in the Indian newspapers, my site and now in my Notes at Facebook, e.g. “Mistaken Macroeconomics” etc.

Update from Facebook July 2, 2010:

Subroto Roy has lost count of all the Advisory Councils in New Delhi and whom they are supposed to be advising or about what. Manmohan Singh has an “Economic Advisory Council” and a “Trade and Industry Advisory Council” besides the “Planning Commission” and “National Development Council” and “National Security Council” and any number of others for sure. Sonia Gandhi has the “National Advisory Council” who seem to live in cities but want to talk about rural India; a rural India where people have always been fully familiar with normal markets for food and labour yet those markets are now being destroyed or at least distorted, perhaps incorrigibly. My advice to Rajiv Gandhi 20 years ago based on the perestroika-for-India project I had led at the UH Manoa was for free (in fact it has cost me a lot personally, so the price I charged was probably negative) — and yet, I am bold enough to say, it remains unsurpassed.

Update from Facebook July 3, 2010:

Subroto Roy is pleasantly surprised to find a “senior journalist” speak a truth in today’s pink business newspaper about the origins of India’s 1991 economic reform, admitting: “Nor might the government have been able to justify liberalisation if it hadn’t been for the 1991 Congress election manifesto that Rajiv Gandhi had compiled, but tragically, not lived to push through.” And who got Rajiv to do that? I did. On Sep 18 1990, based on the University of Hawaii Manoa project I had led since 1986. Later, the process got corrupted by the greedy and the mendacious.

Posted in Congress Party, Economic Policy, India's Government economists, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's agriculture, India's Agriculture & Food, India's political lobbyists, India's political parties, Institute of Economic Affairs, Manmohan Singh, Political Economy, Political mendacity, Politics, Rajiv Gandhi, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Sonia Gandhi, University of Hawaii. 10 Comments »

My 3 Dec IIC Delhi talk “Towards Making the Indian Rupee a Hard Currency of the World Economy: An analysis from British times until the present day” & its coverage in Asian Age/Deccan Herald, GDI Impuls Zurich, Lok Sabha TV & Sunday Guardian

December 7, 2012 — drsubrotoroy

The article below, which is not inaccurate, is from the *Asian Age*/*Deccan Herald* of 4 December.

There has been a Lok Sabha TV interview, 1 on One with Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, aired on Sunday 9 Dec 10 pm, repeated Monday 9 am.

There has been an interview with GDI Impuls banking quarterly of Zurich published on 6 Dec 2012.

And there has been an interview with Delhi’s Sunday Guardian weekly newspaper dated 16 Dec 2012.

Posted in Academic research, Britain in India, China's macroeconomics, China's savings rate, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Growth, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of exchange controls, Economics of Public Finance, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, India's Big Business, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's balance of payments, India's Capital Markets, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Foreign Exchange Reserves, India's Foreign Trade, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's Macroeconomics, India's Military Defence, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's political lobbyists, India's Politics, India's pork-barrel politics, India's poverty, India's Public Finance, India's Reserve Bank, India's State Finances, Inflation, Manmohan Singh, Microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, Rajiv Gandhi, Reverse-Euro Model for India, Sonia Gandhi. 1 Comment »

Milton Friedman’s Nov 1955 Memorandum to the Govt of India which I published for the first time at UH-Manoa on 21 May 1989, and then later in the 1992 book

June 10, 2012 — drsubrotoroy

A Memorandum to the Government of India 1955 by Milton Friedman

(published by me for the first time some 34 years later on 21 May 1989 at UH-Manoa…that original document was in my professorial office at IIT, and is yet to be returned) …

[EDITORIAL NOTE from *Foundations of India's Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s* edited by Subroto Roy & WE James...: "This memorandum is dated November 5, 1955, and was written at the invitation of the Government of India, where the author was working for some months as a consultant to the Ministry of Finance. It has not been published before. The editors believe it remains relevant to Indian discussions today. The history of the advice given by other Western economists in the early years of the Indian Republic has been recently surveyed by George Rosen in Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Social Change in South Asia 1950-1970 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985)."]

“The Goal
A 5% per annum rate of increase in real national income seems entirely feasible, on the basis both of the experience of other countries and of India’s own recent past. The great untapped resource of technical and scientific knowledge available to India for the taking is the economic equivalent of the untapped continent available to the United States 150 years ago. The basic question is one of method, of the social and economic arrangements that will best promote the conversion of these potentialities into realities while at the same time maintaining freedom and democracy and giving ever-widening opportunities to the mass of the Indian people. The belief that underlies these notes is that the basic requisites are a steady and moderately expansionary monetary framework, greatly widened opportunities for education and training, improved facilities for transportation and communication to promote the mobility not only of goods but even more important of people, and an environment that gives maximum scope to the initiative and energy of farmers, businessmen, and traders. The conquest of the technical frontier like the conquest of the geographical frontier requires a varied initiative by millions of individuals, flexibility of outlook and organization, and willingness to venture. The Government of India is doing much, and much that is highly effective, to bring these requisites into being. There is much more to do that at least in Indian conditions can be done only by the Government. But the Government also is following some policies and proposing others that are likely to hinder rather than promote economic development. The following comments, which are mainly restricted to such policies, deal with investment policy; policy toward the private sector; monetary policy; resources available to the public sector; and foreign exchange policy.

Investment Policy
Over-Emphasis on the Capital-Output Ratio. There is a tendency not only in India but in most of the literature on economic development to regard the ratio of investment to national income as almost the only key to the rate of development, to take it for granted that there is a rigid and mechanical ratio between the amount of investment and additions to output. In the opinion of this writer, this seems a serious mistake. At the one extreme, output can increase even without investment; at the other, too high a ratio of investment may actually produce a lower rate of increase in income.

There are two reasons why the amount of investment and the increase in output can be, and empirically are, only loosely connected. First, the form and distribution of investment are at least as important as its sheer magnitude. Second, what is called capital investment is only part of the total expenditure on increasing the productivity of an economy. The first reason needs little additional comment. The second is perhaps less clear. In any economy, the major source of productive power is not machinery, equipment, buildings and other physical capital; it is the productive capacity of the human beings who compose the society. Yet what we call investment refers only to expenditures on physical capital; expenditures that improve the productive capacity of human beings are generally left entirely out of account. In the United States, for example, only about one fifth of the total income is return to physical capital, four fifth to human capital. By this writer’s estimate similarly, only about one fifth of the annual rate of growth in the United States can be attributed to the direct effects of investment in the usual sense; four fifth must be attributed to the growth in the productivity of human beings. Annual expenditures on improving the quality and quantity of human resources are at least as large as and perhaps much larger than investment as usually defined. Destroy the physical plant of the United States and leave the skills of the people and it would take but a few years to restore the initial position. Destroy the skills and leave the plant and the level of output would sink irretrievably. The cathedrals of medieval Europe, the pyramids of Egypt, the monuments of the Moghul empire in India are all testimony to the possibility of a high rate of investment in physical capital without a growth in the standard of living of the masses of the people. These considerations are especially important for India, precisely because its frontier is the frontier of technical knowledge and skill.

This is not to deny in any way the desirability of investment in physical capital. It is certainly highly important and is to some measure an indispensable concomitant of the development of human capital. But it is not the whole or even the most important part of the story. The danger is that concentration on it may lead to policies that increase physical investment at the expense of investment in human capital; and even within the area of physical investment, may lead to increases in the kind of physical investment that we can measure at the expense of kinds that we cannot measure. We must be aware lest we become the victims of our statistical creations.

Emphasis on Two Extremes Against the Middle. The form of investment is no less important than its kind. The chief problem in the Indian programme that impresses one here is the tendency to concentrate investment in heavy industry at the one extreme and handicrafts at the other, at the expense of small and moderate size industry. This policy threatens an inefficient use of capital at the one extreme by combining it with too little labour, and an inefficient use of labour at the other extreme by combining it with too little capital. The presumption for an economy like India’s is that the best use of capital is in general somewhere in between, that heavy industry can best develop and be built upon a widely diversified and much expanded light industry. We may hasten to add that this is only a general presumption which may well admit of special exceptions. Perhaps, for example, the steel industry is one exception in India.

Attempt to Do Too Much in the Public Sector. Indian thought may not have taken full account of the post-War experience of European countries in expanding the public sector. Country after country moved in this direction immediately after the War; to the best of the present writer’s knowledge, the results were in every case disappointing. This experience has produced a drastic change in the attitudes of the labour and left-wing parties toward nationalization and detailed state control over economic activity. The elements in the parties that have not changed their approach are now being dubbed “reactionary” by some of their fellows!

This point may be especially important for India. The areas for which only Government can take responsibility are here so large, so vital, and require such large investments that they alone would be a heavy burden on the limited administrative personnel of high calibre. It seems the better part of wisdom therefore to avoid any activities that can be left to others. The problem involves both the kind of activities taken into the public sector and the magnitude of investment. Some further comments are made on the latter below in discussing the resources available to the public sector.

Attempt to Control Private Investment in Too Rigid and Detailed a Fashion. (i) Cutting off particular investment projects may not make resources available for other uses but may simply eliminate savings that would otherwise have been available. Much saving is made to finance specific investment projects. If it cannot be used for that purpose, it may well be directed to consumption or to the accumulation of bullion or its equivalent. (ii) It is impossible to predict in advance the lines of investment that will turn out to be the most productive — as the failure of so many private enterprises amply demonstrates. There is therefore great need for a system that is flexible and can change easily. (iii) Detailed direction wastes scarce energies and ability of public servants in producing and enforcing regulations and of private individuals in trying to evade or avoid or change them. (iv) Given that the public sector gets the resources it demands, is not the market criterion appropriate for the allocation of the rest of investment? To frustrate it means to deny consumers freedom of choice and so to reduce the value to them of the goods produced. (v) Government does have a responsibility for seeing to it that the total of public and private investment is kept within the total resources of the community without inflation. But this can best be accomplished by monetary and fiscal policy, rather than by detailed regulation, leaving the allocation of investment among private industries to be accomplished by the interest rate. Insofar as this mechanism works imperfectly, measures to improve its operation seem preferable to supplanting it.

Policy Toward the Private Sector
Protection of Inefficient Methods of Production. In addition to the Government controls already considered which are designed to direct investment, there are others whose purpose is mainly protective: the excise tax on factory-made shoes and factory-made textiles; reservation of markets, and the like. In the opinion of this writer, such policies seem misdirected. India’s basic problem is the inefficient use of manpower; it is no solution to protect inefficiency, and the attempt to do so leads to a waste not only of human resources but also of physical capital. The extra money consumers have to pay for the products, let alone direct subsidies to producers, could be channelled at least in part into investment. And there may even be actual disinvestment — we were told that some shoe machinery was lying idle and depreciating because of the tax.

There is a tendency to underrate the importance of nominally low taxes in promoting inefficiency. For example, there is a 10% tax on factory-made shoes. But half to two-thirds of the cost of shoes is the raw material. The tax therefore amounts to 20% or 30% of the value added by the factory, and it will not pay to produce shoes unless factory production is at least this much more efficient than hand production. The justification for these devices is to increase employment. The objective is fundamental, and would be worth achieving even at some cost in total output, but it seems to the present writer dubious that these means accomplish their objective even in the very short run, and certain that they work against it in the moderate or long run. What they do is to increase the number of people employed inefficiently; but they also decrease the number of workers in factories producing the same product, and in other industries stimulated by the higher income of the factory workers; the decrease is likely to exceed the increase but because it is more diffuse and less obvious, it tends to be neglected.

Coddling of Private Industry in Certain Directions Combined with Severely Restrictive Controls in Others. Just as it is inappropriate to discriminate in favour of the cottage industries, so it is equally inappropriate to discriminate in favour of factory industry or large concerns. Granting them special favours — in the form of especially advantageous loans, guaranteed markets, refusal of licenses to competitors, enforcing or even permitting private price-fixing and market-sharing agreements — simply encourages inefficiency and wastes scarce resources. If private industry is granted special favours by the Government, it is certainly inevitable that its use of these favours will be controlled; but this does not offset the harm done by the favours; it merely introduces new sources of rigidity and inefficiency. Business ingenuity is devoted to carving out protected sectors instead of to opening up new markets and lowering costs. There is no justification for private industry unless it is competitive, unless the right to receive profits is accompanied by acceptance of the risk of loss. Private industry should be made to stand on its own feet without either favour or harassment.

Monetary Policy
Erratic Policy. A stable monetary climate is a basic prerequisite for healthy economic growth. Yet over the past five years, monetary policy has been highly erratic. It first permitted and facilitated substantial price rises, then reacted too far in the opposite direction. More recently, monetary policy has again reversed direction and again threatens to go too far, this time in an inflationary direction. This erratic policy is recorded directly in the behaviour of the stock of money and of wholesale and retail prices, and indirectly, in a less rapid rate of economic advance than would have been feasible.

The present writer believes that monetary policy in India would be more stable and consistent if the monetary authorities paid more attention to the size of the money stock and less to other indicators, and if they took as their proximate goal, a steady expansion in the money stock (allowing for seasonal influences) at a rate of something like 4 to 6 per cent per year. It may be noted that detailed examination of the record of American monetary authorities persuades one that this general proposition is equally true for the United States, with a desirable rate of expansion of the money stock of 4 per cent per year.

The importance of a stable monetary policy hardly can be overemphasized. There is probably no other single area in which mistakes can be more disastrous or appropriate policy more beneficial. The fact that it operates on a general level and makes its effects felt impersonally and indirectly is at one and the same time the reason for its crucial importance and for the widespread failure to recognize its importance.

Deficit Financing. Deficit financing is currently proceeding at the rate of something like Rs. 150 to 200 crores a year. Given the generally deflationary trend of the recent past, such a rate doubtless can be absorbed for a time without a serious price rise. It is exceedingly doubtful, however, that it can be for more than a year or so. According to some rough yet fairly detailed estimates made by this writer, something less than Rs. 500 crores is the maximum amount that can be absorbed over the next five years without a substantial rise in prices. By this estimate, continued deficit financing at a rate of Rs. 200 crores per year over that period would produce a price rise of at least 30 per cent, and perhaps much more.

Resources Available to the Public Sector
There seems to be a general agreement that planned expenditures in the public sector substantially exceed expected receipts, even after allowing for a shortfall of actual expenditures, for deficit financing to the extent of Rs. 1,000 to 1,200 crores, and for a substantial amount of foreign aid. If we are right about the safe amount of deficit financing, the actual gap is substantially larger than the amounts generally cited. This financial gap corresponds to a real resource gap. It can be filled without curtailing the Plan only by either getting additional resources from abroad; or making domestic resources more productive over and above the 5 per cent per year increase already allowed for in the estimates; or transferring resources from other uses. The transfer of resources can be brought about by additional taxation, forced savings, additional voluntary savings, or a reduction in private investment. Additional voluntary savings and a reduction in private investment can in turn be brought about to some extent by a monetary policy that allows interest rates to rise. Inflation is of course a possible danger, but it is not really a separate method of filling the gap; it is a form of taxation and, in the view of this writer, a particularly inefficient and inequitable form.

This only states the problem. We have not been able to study in detail either the tax structure of India or the financial structure for mobilizing and encouraging savings, so no independent judgment can be given on the possibility of filling the resource gap by the various means. Casual impression suggests that there is some possibility of increasing tax revenues without doing much harm, but that any substantial expansion in tax revenues or heavy reliance on any of the other methods except for foreign aid is currently subject to extremely serious limitations. If this is so, filling the gap by their use, if successful, might make public investment larger only at the expense of reducing the rate of growth of aggregate real income by killing incentives outside the public sector, eliminating potentially productive private investment, and producing either inflation or a deadening network of direct controls. This is a special case of the point made earlier about the loose connection between the rate of investment and the rate of growth of income. It may well be that under the circumstances, cutting the size of the program may be preferable to trying to fill the gap on the revenue side.

On the tax side, three comments may be made: (i) The small scope of direct income taxes seems an obvious defect in the tax structure. A more broadly based tax with lower exemptions and more effective administration might both raise considerable revenues and produce a more equitable distribution of the tax burden. (One recognizes that for a country like India there are special problems of administration and enforcement that this writer is incompetent to assess.) (ii) The use of excise taxes for the protection of one method of production or one product as opposed to another not only promotes inefficiency but is also wasteful of revenue. A 10 per cent tax on shoes would yield more revenue, do less harm to productive efficiency and cost the consumer little if any more than a 10 per cent tax on factory-made shoes. As a side observation, is it clear that if the extra proceeds were used to facilitate the retraining and placement of hand workers it would be of less value even from the point of view of the employment problem? (iii) A minor possible source of additional revenue that would have favourable effects on efficiency is the auctioning off of licenses to use foreign exchange suggested as a possibility below.

The Foreign Exchange Problem
The Foreign Exchange Gap. It is generally accepted that present programmes are likely to involve a substantial excess in the demand for foreign exchange over the available supply, even if allowance is made for foreign aid at roughly the present level. These estimates take for granted not only the investment program but also retention of the existing exchange rate and the existing structure of import and export controls. Even under these assumptions, the foreign exchange gap in part and perhaps in whole is a particular aspect of the total resource gap: any reduction in the total resource gap will automatically reduce the foreign exchange gap. Given the special foreign exchange resources that are likely to be available, we may guess that solution of the total resource gap would largely solve the foreign exchange gap as well.

Exchange Controls. The existing structure of exchange-controls and their associated system of import and export licenses and of discrimination between sources of purchases, seem to this writer a major obstacle to the growth and progress of the Indian economy. They involve waste and inefficiency in the use of foreign exchange. They introduce delay, uncertainty, and arbitrariness into domestic business activities. They impose on officials in charge of exchange control a task that is bound to be discharged most imperfectly, however able and devoted the officials may be. The criteria the officials use — and must use — tend to perpetuate the status-quo ante, and therefore constitute an obstacle to dynamic change and adaptation in an area that traditionally has been one of the most dynamic sectors in the economy and the source of much of the impetus to change. Exchange controls necessarily involve the indiscriminate distribution of implicit subsidies to those granted import licenses, and they lend themselves to abuse as a means of granting administrative protection from foreign competition to inefficient or monopolistic domestic producers.

The elimination of the exchange-controls and import and export restrictions is thus a most desirable objective of policy. It must be recognized, however, that it would probably increase the demand for foreign exchange, but the likelihood of an increase means that elimination of controls would have to be accompanied by the introduction of some other means of rationing exchange. It should be emphasized that this increase in the demand for foreign exchange is not a fresh problem that would be created by the elimination of exchange-controls. The problem is there now. That is why controls are deemed necessary. The question is whether there are not less harmful ways of solving it.

Alternatives to Exchange-Controls. One alternative, which retains central control over the amount of foreign exchange to be released, is to auction off whatever amount of foreign exchange it is decided to release, permitting the purchasers to use it for anything they wish and in any currency area they wish. This would be a far more efficient system of rationing and would hinder internal economic development far less than the present system and at the same time yield some revenue. We have not been able to construct even a rough estimate of the amount of revenue, but it is unlikely to be of major magnitude.

It would be preferable to avoid this auctioning system as well. While it eliminates any distortion in the pattern of imports, it does not produce the appropriate adjustment of exports to imports. Only two other basic alternative modes of adjustment to changes in the conditions of external trades are available: first, to inflate or deflate internally in response to a putative surplus or deficit in the balance of payments; second, to permit the exchange rate to fluctuate. At least in the present worldwide monetary conditions, the first is not desirable economically, since it puts internal conditions of trade at the mercy of changes in external conditions and these are about as likely to result from vagaries in the internal policies of other countries as from changes in the “real” conditions of trade. The preferable method is to let the exchange rate be determined in a free market — the method of a floating exchange rate that has been adopted by Canada with such conspicuous success.

It may be worth saying a few words about how a floating exchange rate eliminates any foreign exchange gap and means that there are not two problems, a total resource gap and a foreign exchange gap, but only one, a total resources gap. Suppose the total programme is in balance but, at the existing exchange rate, there is an excess of demand for foreign exchange over the supply. The result is to lower the rate. This makes India’s products more attractive to the outside world, foreign products more expensive to Indians. The result is to lead to an increase in exports, thus making more foreign exchange available, to shift the pattern of investment within India away from kinds with a large import component and toward kinds with a larger domestic resource component, away from production for the domestic market to production for the foreign market, and to shift consumption from foreign goods toward domestic goods. A putative foreign exchange surplus clearly has the opposite effects. In addition to these effects on trade, there are also, of course, effects on capital movements, which depend on whether the change in rate is regarded as temporary or permanent.

India’s membership in the Sterling Area raises obvious difficulties in the way of India’s acting alone, and may make it impossible for India to free her exchange rate except in concert with a similar move by Britain. However, if these difficulties could be surmounted, an independent movement by India might have very great advantages precisely because India is entering into a period of rapid economic change and is not a major financial centre. This writer believes there is more of an analogy between India’s and Canada’s positions than might at first appear. In a world of inconvertible currencies, a country that offers convertibility, albeit at a fluctuating fate, has a special attraction for investors and traders.

The problem of trade is frequently considered separately from that of the import of foreign capital. This is a mistake. Imports of goods may bring with them no capital directly but they bring businessmen and contact, and discovery of investment opportunities by people who are anxious to exploit them and who have contacts at home interested in such opportunities. Such continuous and intimate contact is likely to produce both a larger and, equally important, more productive flow of foreign investment than any number of missions coming out for brief periods with the objective of exploring investment opportunities.

Foreign Assistance. Any foreign assistance will of course help to fill both the total resources gap and the foreign exchange gap. Its direct impact, however, is much greater on the foreign exchange gap. In consequence, foreign assistance is especially likely to permit an elimination of import and export controls without threatening the existing exchange rate. But it would be a mistake to suppose that foreign assistance, however extensive, would permit elimination of controls, a fixed exchange rate, and an independent domestic monetary policy for any length of time. Even though the exchange rate is in some sense in long-run equilibrium, accidental fluctuations will from time to time produce large drains on reserves and if there is no mechanism for adjusting to them, these drains may well make the short-run position untenable.

Conclusion
If these comments have concentrated largely on the financial machinery of economic organization, it is not because that is the only or even the most important problem facing India but rather because, on the one hand, it is more within this writer’s special competence, and on the other, it seems to be the area in which current policy can be improved most. The present writer is convinced that the fundamental problem for India is the improvement of the physical and technical quality of her people, the awakening of a sense of hope, the weakening of rigid social and economic arrangements, the introduction of flexibility of institutions and mobility of people, the opening up of the social and economic ladder to people of all kinds and classes. And what gives an outsider like this writer a feeling of optimism and hope about the future of India, makes one feel that India is on the move and will continue to move, is that so much is being done and such a good beginning has been made on this fundamental problem of creating the human and social basis for a dynamic and progressive economy.”

Posted in Academic freedom, Academic research, Economic Policy, Economic Theory of Growth, Economics of exchange controls, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, Milton Friedman, University of Hawaii. Leave a Comment »

On the rot of institutions (and what an Academy might be like in the Facebook/Internet Age): Listening to the ladies….

August 31, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook Aug 31 2011:

Subroto Roy has really done what he can, just about, for his country, & has been rewarded by his country’s government and its “institution of national importance” with the most despicable evil. It is a toss-up between whether my personal experience of Indian corruption and vicious state-tyranny is worse than my personal experience of bribery and perjury in the federal court system in America.

Andrea Kent Your bitterness is understandable. Patriotism is rising above appropriate anger toward individuals and continuing to love and serve the nation, even if it is infected by wicked individuals.

Subroto Roy Yes it is indeed, you are right…

Andrea Kent The history of most great nations contains examples of individuals who, though later acknowledged as heroes, were treated shabbily by their respective homelands. It is sad that you are being treated badly, but surely it is just by one institution and its envious employees, rather than by the entire country? At least, I hope this is caused by a small number of wickedly envious people rather than by an established policy of the government.;

Subroto Roy Corruption is endemic in India… the matters I exposed some years ago had to do with (a) apparent siphoning off money in building (and purchase) contracts; and (b) apparently abusing the fiduciary interest of students by stealing from their fees to pay for round the world business-class travel, etc.. No, I am not bitter, either about India or about America but yes, as I have said it is a toss-up between whether my personal experience of Indian corruption and vicious state-tyranny is worse than my personal experience of bribery and perjury in the federal court system in America.

Aletha Kuschan Andrea is right, though, that you were affected by individual actions more, I think, than by the nation as a whole in both instances. I wish that your fine work was getting the lion’s share of attention and not causing you troubles at all. But ideas have their natural audiences and all too often that audience is located in the future — as Andrea noted. Keep the faith, Suby. Truth does win out in time. And that really does matter too. Listen to the ladies, Suby …

Subroto Roy Thanks Aletha, Andrea. Aletha, re “Andrea is right, though, that you were affected by individual actions”, Individualism is of course something I know much about since my Hayek days (Frank Hahn called me 26 years ago “probably the outstanding young Hayekian”) but my experience has been mixed.

I have had quite long associations with three academic institutions, two in America, one in India. At the first, my academic work was attacked by a gang of what I have called “inert game theorists”, game theory being the prevalent fashion at the time, there was an academic freedom issue and I let it be; but on top of that arose the open and blatant sexual harassment of a woman graduate student by the department head, and my helping her, in a very minimal but essential way, contributed to the conflict. I did not fight it more than a bit and left (for BYU, where the Mormons gave me refuge and allowed me to complete my book, almost).

The second case, also in America, was one of outrageous collective targeting of my work as an academic and an economist by my national origin, even my purported race and religion, and when I did battle that, having immense faith in the American system, my adversary responded by demonstrated perjury, buying out my attorney (and getting caught doing it), and compromising the federal judge. Not good. Certainly my faith in the American system was shaken but *not* in America herself — why? because two of the greatest 20th C American economists, Milton Friedman and TW Schultz — gladly stood for me, and their testimony (ignored by the compromised judge) was far more important than anything else to me. I.e., it was these two American *individuals* (as well as several others less eminent but equally heroic) who allowed my faith in America to continue unshaken even though the personal experience of the institutions had been ghastly.

The Indian case is wholly different as it is a wholly different political culture for the most part. The issues are cheap and pathetic — fraudulent academic credentials, stealing money from the government, stealing money from students, stealing others’ property wherever possible in the knowledge you can get away with it, etc.

There is hardly anything of deep significance involved except it gives the lie to all the government and elite propaganda about how well India is doing — and in that context becomes relevant too what I did in America which came to Rajiv Gandhi through my advice to him in his last months:

Aletha Kuschan meanwhile, it was Abigail Adams’s sage advice to “remember the ladies”

Subroto Roy Indeed I do, and follow it; my best buddy, an old lady almost 86, is usually full of sage wisdom these days.

Subroto Roy What is the solution? It is, in my case. what I have said here: “A friend has been kind enough to call me an Academician, which I probably am, though one who really needs his own Academy because the incompetence, greed and mendacity encountered too often in the modern professoriat is dispiriting.”

Subroto Roy And what does such an Academy consist of in the Internet/Facebook Age? Big buildings? Naaaa…

Aletha Kuschan What would Socrates do???? WWSD — for short

Subroto Roy Quite so, what would Socrates do? His Academy today would be his Facebook profile and his blog.

Aletha Kuschan I get to be Plato — called it first!!

Subroto Roy LOL… Platoletha has a nice ancient ring about it…

Andrea Kent I think Aletha would be Πλάτωνίσ, and I would then be Ἀριστοτέλά, your devoted acolytes.

Subroto Roy LOL… I actually was given the Roman name Subius Maximus myself by my buddy Bobbus Fluhartius, aka Bob Fluharty in Charleston WVa..

“Sidney Alexander & I are really the only ones who showed the basic logical contradictions caused by positivism having penetrated economics in the middle of the 20th Century”

July 24, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

Subroto Roy hears from Mr Scott Peterson,

“Dear Professor Roy, I have been reading your book *Philosophy of Economics* and happened to stumble on the following paper:’Public Finance Texts Cannot Justify Government Taxation’ Walter E. Block (Loyola University New Orleans, Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business) has posted Public Finance Texts Cannot Justify Government Taxation: A Critique on SSRN. Here is the abstract: ‘In virtually all economic sub-disciplines, practitioners of the dismal science are exceedingly desirous of avoiding normative concerns, at least in principle. These are seen, and rightly so, as extremely treacherous. Being only human, they do sometimes stray off the path of positive analysis; but when they fall off the wagon in this manner, if at all, it is done relatively cautiously, and infrequently. There is one blatant exception to this general rule, however, and that is the field of public finance. Here, in sharp contrast to the usual practice, not only is normative economics embraced, it is done so with alacrity, and without apology. That is, most textbooks on the subject start off with one or several chapters which attempt to justify taxation on moral, efficiency, and other grounds. This occurs in no other field.’

When I read this I immediately thought of your discussion of the normative vs positive approaches in economics. Perhaps the exception economists make regarding public finance is that most economists’ paychecks come from the public sector.

Regards,

Scott Peterson

Dear Mr Peterson, Yes indeed. Thanks for the observation. Sidney Alexander and I are really the only ones who showed the basic logical contradictions caused by positivism having penetrated economics in the middle of the 20th Century. Are you at Facebook? Feel free to join me. Cordial regards, Suby Roy

“….Meanwhile, my main work within economic theory, the “Principia Economica” manuscript, was being read by the University of Chicago Press’s five or six anonymous referees. One of them pointed out my argument had been anticipated years earlier in the work of MIT’s Sidney Stuart Alexander. I had no idea of this and was surprised; of course I knew Professor Alexander’s work in balance of payments theory but not in this field. I went to visit Professor Alexander in Boston…. Professor Alexander was extremely gracious, and immediately declared with great generosity that it was clear to him my arguments in “Principia Economica” had been developed entirely independently of his work. He had come at the problem from an American philosophical tradition of Dewey, I had done so from a British tradition of Wittgenstein. (CS Peirce was probably the bridge between the two.) He and I had arrived at some similar conclusions but we had done so completely independently.”

Professor Alexander, contemporary of PA Samuelson, tutor of RM Solow and many others, deserves far greater attention, and I will do what I can towards that. He introduced me briefly to his MIT colleague Lester Thurow and I sent an email some time ago to Professor Thurow suggesting MIT should try to remember him better.

William E (Ted) James, Dec 21 1951- May 19 2010, friend & collaborator: How we made a little bit of history together

May 31, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

“Professor Roy?”, a smooth baritone asked me on the phone, within a week or so of my entering my Manoa office in the Fall of 1986. “Yes?”, I said, “My name is Ted James, and I was wondering if we could have lunch; I wanted to talk to you about working together on India”. “I thought I’d met everyone in the Department”, said I. “We at the East West Center are a bit of a mysterious bunch”, he joked. Oh so this is the US Govt calling, I said to myself, better watch out. “Well, I’ve published on India already”, I said referring to my IEA monograph which had attracted the leader of the London Times a year and a half earlier, and trying to indicate that I felt I had done my bit for India and did not see myself doing much more. “I know you have, your reputation precedes you, that’s why I thought we should meet”, he said.

So we met at a nondescript campus café for some stir-fry. Ted was an excessively handsome Southern Californian straight out of Hollywood central casting, and the most unlikely-looking American economist I have ever met. I am 6’ and I think he was perhaps 5’9” but slimmer and more muscular with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, a fabulous magnetic smile, someone who might easily have been a hero in a TV serial or an afternoon soap-opera.

He wasn’t a film-star though but an economist, though not a nerdy one like myself at the time, and he had a tremendous almost evangelical keenness to not merely comprehend the economic policy-making process of so-called developing countries, especially in Asia, but also change them for the better.

I was 31, Ted must have been about 34 when we first met for that stir-fry lunch. He did indeed know my 1984 work which was enough to win me over as London and Cambridge, or for that matter Blacksburg and Provo from where I had come, seemed very far away from Manoa at the time. Not only did he know my work, he had already referred to it in the references and index and perhaps the notes of a new book he had co-edited on Asian Development, which was remarkable as lags in publication and research were long.

Ted proposed at the lunch that he and I work together on “South Asia”, and that he would get funding from the East West Center. I suggested there was no such place, that “South Asia” was a State Department abstraction, but there were individual and complex countries, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh – and Afghanistan and Nepal too…. He agreed. We would start with working together on the theory of economic policy reform as applied to India and Pakistan first…

And so it began…

Legally speaking the funding came from the State of Hawaii and not the United States Government, from funds owed to the former by the latter. Of the total budget of some $100,000 I was very miserly and returned 25% of it unspent, an unheard of thing. Milton Friedman commanded a speaking fee at the time of $10,000, and agreed to our nominal $1,000 for a two-day visit on condition we told no one.:) A Pakistani author was among several Pakistani scholars who thanked me for putting the volume together, as the first time Pakistan had been taken seriously in American academia; he asked me how much it cost, when I said $35,000 for the Pakistan book, he said the IMF would spend that over a weekend at Bretton Woods and get nothing ….

As described elsewhere, the manuscript of the India-volume contributed to the origins of India’s 1991 economic reform during my encounter with Rajiv Gandhi in his last months; the Pakistan-volume came to contribute to the origins of the Pakistan-India peace process. (“In 2004 from Britain, I wrote to the 9/11 Commission stating that it was possible that had the vicious illegalities against me not occurred at Manoa starting in 1989, we may have gone on after India and Pakistan to study Afghanistan, and come up with a pre-emptive academic analysis a decade before September 11 2001.”)

I came to know from Ted’s wife Tess in June that Ted had died of cancer in Manila on May 19 2010 aged 58.

I said to her and her family that I do not weep for many but do weep for Ted.

(More to come… this will be a technology-consistent ongoing obituary for my friend and collaborator, which he would have found amusing for sure…)…

Posted in Asia and the West, Economic Policy, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Economic History, Pakistan's economy, Pakistan's history, Pakistan's politics, University of Hawaii, William E (Ted) James (1951-2010). 1 Comment »

Memo to the PM

May 30, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook May 29 2011:

Subroto Roy hears Dr Manmohan Singh said yesterday (to journalists “on board Air India One” returning with him from Africa) “I think industrialisation is essential for the country to solve the problems of unemployment and poverty”. Nonsense Prime Minister! That is obsolescent or, at the very least, rather quaint Stalinist chatter. Try to provide public goods properly, which means getting the judiciary etc to work well. Try to get the public finances & public decision-making processes right, which means getting govt accounting & audit right and legislatures to work across the country. Try to drastically raise the productivity of public investments and expenditures. And try not to debauch India’s money any further than you have done. All that may make a good start. (And only when you have done all that do you really need to travel abroad again on “Air India One”; that thing the telephone really is a great invention…)

Subroto Roy is scolded by Ms Siddiqui: “Out of all the corrupt money grabbing racist ministers and governors and politicians you could find only Manmohan Singh to attack? Truly discerning arent you?”,

to which I have to say Hello Ms Siddiqi, Thank you for your comment. It is I am afraid ill-informed. There is nothing personal in my critical assessment of Dr Singh’s economics and politics. To the contrary, he has been in decades past a friend or at least a colleague of my father’s, and in the autumn of 1973 visited our then-home in Paris at the request of my father to advise me, then aged 18, before I embarked on my undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics. My assessments in recent years like “The Politics of Dr Singh” https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=177565501125“Assessing Manmohan”https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=177600651125, “The Dream Team: A Critique” https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=184178641125 “Mistaken Macroeconomics” https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=179676656125 etc need to be seen along with my “Assessing Vajpayee: Hindutva True and False”, “The Hypocrisy of the CPI-M”, “Against Quackery”, “Our Dismal Politics”, “Political Paralysis” etc.

Nothing personal is intended in any of these; the purpose at hand has been to contribute to a full and vigorous discussion of the public interest in India.

Posted in Economic Policy, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Industry, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, Manmohan Singh. 1 Comment »

Silver Jubilee of “Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India”

May 29, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

May 29 2009:

It is a quarter century precisely today since my monograph Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India was first published in London by the Institute of Economic Affairs.

ppp1984

Its text is now available (in slightly rough form) at this site here.

Now in May 1984, Indira Gandhi ruled in Delhi, and the ghost of Brezhnev was still fresh in Moscow. The era of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in America was at its height. Pricing, Planning & Politics emerged from my 1976-1982 doctoral thesis at Cambridge though it came to be written in Blacksburg and Ithaca in 1982-1983. It was the first critique after BR Shenoy of India’s Sovietesque economics since Jawaharlal Nehru’s time.

The Times, London’s most eminent paper at the time, wrote its lead editorial comment about it on the day it was published, May 29 1984.

londonti

It used to take several days for the library at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to receive its copy of The Times of London and other British newspapers. I had not been told of the date of publication and did not know of what had happened in London on May 29 until perhaps June 2 — when a friend, Vasant Dave of a children’s charity, who was on campus, phoned me and congratulated me for being featured in The Times which he had just read in the University Library. “You mean they’ve reviewed it?” I asked him, “No, it’s the lead editorial.” “What?” I exclaimed. There was worse. Vasant was very soft-spoken and said “Yes, it’s titled ‘India’s Bad Example’” — which I misheard on the phone as “India’s Mad Example”

Drat! I thought (or words to that effect), they must have lambasted me, as I rushed down to the Library to take a look.

The Times had said

“When Mr. Dennis Healey in the Commons recently stated that Hongkong, with one per cent of the population of India has twice India’s trade, he was making an important point about Hongkong but an equally important point about India. If Hongkong with one per cent of its population and less than 0.03 per cert of India’s land area (without even water as a natural resource) can so outpace India, there must be something terribly wrong with the way Indian governments have managed their affairs, and there is. A paper by an Indian economist published today (Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India by Subroto Roy, IEA £1.80) shows how Asia’s largest democracy is gradually being stifled by the imposition of economic policies whose woeful effect and rhetorical unreality find their echo all over the Third World. As with many of Britain’s former imperial possessions, the rot set in long before independence. But as with most of the other former dependencies, the instrument of economic regulation and bureaucratic control set up by the British has been used decisively and expansively to consolidate a statist regime which inhibits free enterprise, minimizes economic success and consolidates the power of government in all spheres of the economy. We hear little of this side of things when India rattles the borrowing bowl or denigrates her creditors for want of further munificence. How could Indian officials explain their poor performance relative to Hongkong? Dr Roy has the answers for them. He lists the causes as a large and heavily subsidized public sector, labyrinthine control over private enterprise, forcibly depressed agricultural prices, massive import substitution, government monopoly of foreign exchange transactions, artificially overvalued currency and the extensive politicization of the labour market, not to mention the corruption which is an inevitable side effect of an economy which depends on the arbitrament of bureaucrats. The first Indian government under Nehru took its cue from Nehru’s admiration of the Soviet economy, which led him to believe that the only policy for India was socialism in which there would be “no private property except in a restricted sense and the replacement of the private profit system by a higher ideal of cooperative service.” Consequently, the Indian government has now either a full monopoly or is one of a few oligipolists in banking, insurance, railways, airlines, cement, steel, chemicals, fertilizers, ship-building, breweries, telephones and wrist-watches. No businessman can expand his operation while there is any surplus capacity anywhere in that sector. He needs government approval to modernize, alter his price-structure, or change his labour shift. It is not surprising that a recent study of those developing countries which account for most manufactured exports from the Third World shows that India’s share fell from 65 percent in 1953 to 10 per cent in 1973; nor, with the numerous restrictions on inter-state movement of grains, that India has over the years suffered more from an inability to cope with famine than during the Raj when famine drill was centrally organized and skillfully executed without restriction. Nehru’s attraction for the Soviet model has been inherited by his daughter, Mrs. Gandhi. Her policies have clearly positioned India more towards the Soviet Union than the West. The consequences of this, as Dr Roy states, is that a bias can be seen in “the antipathy and pessimism towards market institutions found among the urban public, and sympathy and optimism to be found for collectivist or statist ones.” All that India has to show for it is the delivery of thousands of tanks in exchange for bartered goods, and the erection of steel mills and other heavy industry which help to perpetuate the unfortunate obsession with industrial performance at the expense of agricultural growth and the relief of rural poverty.”…..

I felt this may have been intended to be laudatory but it was also inaccurate and had to be corrected. I replied dated June 4 which The Times published in their edition of June 16 1984:

timesletter-11

I was 29 when Pricing, Planning and Politics was published, I am 54 now. I do not agree with everything I said in it and find the tone a little puffed up as young men tend to be; it was also five years before my main “theoretical” work Philosophy of Economics would be published. My experience of life in the years since has also made me far less sanguine both about human nature and about America than I was then. But I am glad to find I am not embarrassed by what I said then, indeed I am pleased I said what I did in favour of classical liberalism and against statism and totalitarianism well before it became popular to do so after the Berlin Wall fell. (In India as elsewhere, former communist apparatchiks and fellow-travellers became pseudo-liberals overnight.)

The editorial itself may have been due to a conversation between Peter Bauer and William Rees-Mogg, so I later heard. The work sold 700 copies in its first month, a record for the publisher. The wife of one prominent Indian bureaucrat told me in Delhi in December 1988 it had affected her husband’s thinking drastically. A senior public finance economist told me he had been deputed at the Finance Ministry when the editorial appeared, and the Indian High Commission in London had urgently sent a copy of the editorial to the Ministry where it caused a stir. An IMF official told me years later that he saw the editorial on board a flight to India from the USA on the same day, and stopped in London to make a trip to the LSE’s bookshop to purchase a copy. Professor Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University had been a critic of aspects of Indian policy; he received a copy in draft just before it was published and was kind enough to write I had “done an excellent job of setting out the problems afflicting our economic policies, unfortunately government-made problems!”

Siddhartha Shankar Ray told me when we first met that he had been in London when the editorial appeared and had seen it there; it affected his decision to introduce me to Rajiv Gandhi as warmly as he came to do a half dozen years later.

Within a few months though, by the Fall of 1984, I was under attack by the “gang of inert game theorists” who had come to Blacksburg following the departure of James Buchanan. By mid 1985 I had moved to Provo, Utah, really rather wishing, as I recall, to have left my India-work behind me. But by late 1986, I was at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where the perestroika-for-India and Pakistan projects that I and WE James led, had come to be sponsored by the University and the East West Center.

The unpublished results of the India-project reached Rajiv Gandhi by my hand on September 18 1990 as has been told elsewhere. A week later, on September 25 1990, Rajiv appointed a small group that included myself, to advise him. It was that encounter with Rajiv Gandhi that sparked the origins of the 1991 economic reform. Yet in 2007 one member of the group, declaring himself close to Sonia Gandhi, brazenly lied in public saying it was Manmohan Singh and not I who had been part of the group — a group of which I had been in fact the first member! Manmohan Singh himself has never claimed to have been present and in fact was not even in India at the time it was formed.

I have explained elsewhere here why I believe this specific lie came to be told by this specific liar who shared membership with me in the group that Rajiv had formed: because I had also pleaded with many and especially within this group that Rajiv had seemed, to my layman’s eyes, very vulnerable to assassination, and none of them had lifted a finger to do anything about it! Such is how duplicity, envy and greed for power make people mendacious and venal in politics!

As for Pricing, Planning and Politics, Dr Manmohan Singh received a personal copy from my father whom he had long known through the Kaul brothers, Brahma and Madan, both of whom were dear friends of my father since the War and Independence. From a letter Dr Singh wrote to my father, he would have received his copy in late 1986 when he was heading the Planning Commission in his penultimate appointment before retirement from the bureaucracy.

Readers of Pricing, Planning and Politics today, 25 years after it was published, may judge for themselves what if any part of it may be still relevant to the new government that Dr Singh is now prime minister of. The work was mostly one of applied microeconomics or the theory of value; in recent years I have written much also of applied macroeconomics or the theory of money as it relates to India. My great professor at Cambridge, Frank Hahn, was kind enough to say in 1985 that he thought my “critique of Development Economics was powerful not only on methodological but also on economic theory grounds”; that to me has been a special source of delight.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Posted in BR Shenoy, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Growth, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of education, Economics of exchange controls, Economics of Public Finance, Economics of Unemployment, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's agriculture, India's Agriculture & Food, India's balance of payments, India's Banking, India's Budget, India's bureaucracy, India's Capital Markets, India's Caste/Ethnic Problems, India's Democracy, India's Diplomacy, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's emigrants to the West, India's farmers, India's Foreign Policy, India's Foreign Trade, India's Industry, India's Labour Markets, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's pork-barrel politics, India-Pakistan peace process, Indira Gandhi, Institute of Economic Affairs, Jawaharlal Nehru, Liberalism/Libertarianism, Manmohan Singh, Margaret Thatcher, Mendacity in politics, Peter Bauer, Political mendacity, Rajiv Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, Ronald Reagan, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, The Times (London), Transparency, University of Hawaii. Leave a Comment »

How to be a Finance Minister (Florence Nightingale Might Have Liked)

April 27, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook, April 27 2011:

Subroto Roy reflects on what the role is of a Finance Minister/Treasury/Exchequer head: it is to be, at least, the Chief Financial Officer of the country.

And what does a good CFO do?

Preserve, if not enhance or at least not worsen, the “financial condition” of the entity in his charge, namely, the asset/liability, income/expenditure, and cashflow positions, plus the goodwill etc.

Of course the financial condition of a country’s Exchequer depends on the financial condition of each and every public entity that adds up to the whole (and less directly on the financial condition of private entities).

Good Finance Ministers should definitely stay away from TV (waffling on endlessly on TV trying to explain one’s economic model is a sure sign of an incompetent FM), probably stay away from most conferences, their favourite word has to be “No” or perhaps “No, I’m sorry”, their resignations need to be typed, signed & ready in their desk-drawer, only needing to be dated at the top. The same a fortiori for Central Bank heads (except for the ready-resignation part).

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) revolutionized nursing by implementing her slogan “Whatever else hospitals do, they should not spread disease”.

Economists and Finance Ministers should seek, at least, at a minimum, to do no harm.

Posted in Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Financial Management, Florence Nightingale. Leave a Comment »

Maynard Keynes on How to Be a Good Economist

April 11, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook, April 11, 2011

Since the name of Keynes is back to being used somewhat in vain around the world, it may be appropriate to recall Maynard Keynes’s description of his own role-model as an economist, his master Alfred Marshall.

“The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject , at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare *combination* of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman and philosopher — in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood: as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.”

JM Keynes “Alfred Marshall, 1842-1924″ in Memorials of Alfred Marshal, edited by AC Pigou, 1925, p. 12.

Keynes himself was trained as and always thought like a mathematician, though he invariably spoke in words about practical realities. Marshall was his master, and so too, to a lesser extent, was his father, Neville Keynes.

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, Alfred Marshall, Cambridge Univ Economics, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, John Maynard Keynes, John Neville Keynes, Microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics, Philosophy of Economics, Political Economy. Leave a Comment »

Two Different Models for India’s Political Economy: Mine & Dr Manmohan Singh’s (Updated Feb 24 2011)

January 11, 2011 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook

February 24 2011

Subroto Roy does not know if he just heard Manmohan Singh say “inflation will soon come down” — excuse me Dr Singh, but how was it you and all your acolytes uniformly said back in July 2010 that inflation would be down to 6% by Dec 2010? 6%?! 16% more likely! I said. Until he explains his previous error, we may suppose he will repeat it.

January 11 2011:

Subroto Roy can stop the Indian inflation and bring integrity to the currency over time, and Manmohan Singh and his advisers cannot (because they have the wrong economic models/theories/data etc and refuse to change), but then they would have to make me a Minister and I keep getting reminded of what Groucho Marx said about clubs that would have him.

Subroto Roy does not think Dr Manmohan Singh or his acolytes and advisers, or his Finance Minister and his acolytes and advisers, understand Indian inflation. If you do not understand something, you are not likely to change it.

March 6 2010:

Subroto Roy says the central difference between the Subroto Roy Model for India as described in 1990-1991 to Rajiv Gandhi in his last months, and the Manmohan Singh Model for India that has developed since Rajiv’s assassination, is that by my model, India’s money and public finances would have acquired integrity enough for the Indian Rupee to have become a hard currency of the world economy by now, allowing all one billion Indians access to foreign exchange and precious metals freely, whereas by the model of Dr Singh and his countless supporters, India’s money and public finance remain subject to government misuse and abuse, and access to foreign exchange remains available principally to politicians, bureaucrats, big business and its influential lobbyists, the military, as well as perhaps ten or twenty million nomenclatura in the metropolitan cities.

April 8 2010:

Subroto Roy notes a different way of stating his cardinal difference with the economics of Dr Manmohan Singh’s Govt: in their economics, foreign exchange is “made available” by the GoI for “business and personal uses”. That is different from my economics of aiming for all one billion Indians to have a money that has some integrity, i.e., a rupee that becomes a hard currency of the world economy. (Ditto incidentally with the PRC.)

Updates:

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy reads in *Newsweek* today (Aug 19) Manmohan Singh “engineered the transition from stagnant socialism to a spectacular takeoff”. This contradicts my experience with Rajiv Gandhi at 10 Janpath in 1990-91. Dr Singh had not returned to India from his years with Julius Nyerere in his final assignment before retiring from the bureaucracy when Rajiv and I first met on 18 September 1990.

“After (Rajiv Gandhi’s) assassination, the comprador business press credited Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh with having originated the 1991 economic reform. In May 2002, however, the Congress Party itself passed a resolution proposed by Digvijay Singh explicitly stating Rajiv and not either of them was to be so credited… There is no evidence Dr Singh or his acolytes were committed to any economic liberalism prior to 1991 and scant evidence they have originated liberal economic ideas for India afterwards. Precisely because they represented the decrepit old intellectual order of statist ”Ma-Bap Sarkari” policy-making, they were not asked in the mid-1980s to be part of a “perestroika-for-India” project done at a foreign university ~ the results of which were received…by Rajiv Gandhi in hand at 10 Janpath on 18 September 1990 and specifically sparked the change in the direction of his economic thinking…”

Subroto Roy notes that current Indian public policy discussion has thus far failed to realise that the rise in money prices of real goods and services is the same as the fall in the real value of money.

Subroto Roy is interested to hear Mr Jaitley say in Parliament today the credibility of Government economists is at stake. Of course it is. There has been far too much greed and mendacity all around, besides sheer ignorance. (When I taught for a year or so at the Delhi School of Economics as a 22 year old Visiting Assistant Professor in 1977-78, I was told Mr Jaitley was in the law school and a student leader of note. I though was more interested in teaching the usefulness of Roy Radner’s “information structures” in a course on “advanced economic theory”.)

July 31 2010

Subroto Roy reads in today’s pink business newspaper the GoI’s debt level at Rs 38 trillion & three large states (WB, MH, UP) is at Rs 6 trillion, add another 18 for all other large states together, another 5 for all small states & 3 for errors and omissions, making my One Minute Estimate of India’s Public Debt Stock Rs 70 trillion (70 lakh crores). Interest payments at, say, 9%, keep the banking system afloat, extracting oxygen from the public finances like a cyanide capsule.

July 28 2010

Subroto Roy observes Parliament to be discussing Indian inflation but expects a solution will not be found until the problem has been comprehended.

July 27 2010:

Subroto Roy continues to weep at New Delhi’s continual debauching of the rupee.

July 25 2010:

Subroto Roy has no idea why Dr Manmohan Singh has himself (along with all his acolytes and flatterers in the Government and media and big business), gone about predicting Indian inflation will fall to 6% by December. 16% may be a more likely figure given a public debt at Rs 40 trillion perhaps plus money supply growth above 20%! (Of course, the higher the figure the Government admits, the more it has to pay in dearness allowance to those poor unionized unfortunates known as Government employees, so perhaps the official misunderestimation (sic) of Indian inflation is a strategy of public finance!)

July 12 2010:

Subroto Roy is amused to read Dr Manmohan Singh’s Chief Acolyte say in today’s pink business newspaper how important accounting is in project-appraisal — does the sinner repent after almost single-handedly helping to ruin project-appraisal & government accounting & macroeconomic planning over decades? I rather doubt it. For myself, I am amused to see chastity now being suddenly preached from within you-know-where.

July 4 2010:

Subroto Roy does not think the Rs 90 billion (mostly in foreign exchange) spent by the Manmohan Singh Government on New Delhi’s “Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3″ is conducive to the welfare of the common man (“aam admi”) who travels, if at all, mostly within India and by rail.

Subroto Roy hears Dr Manmohan Singh say yesterday “Global economic recession did not have much impact on us as it had on other countries”. Of course it didn’t. I had said India was hardly affected but for a collapse of exports & some fall in foreign investment. Why did he & his acolytes then waste vast public resources claiming they were rescuing India using a purported Keynesian fiscal “stimulus” (aka corporate/lobbyist pork)?

May 26 2010:

Subroto Roy would like to know how & when Dr Manmohan Singh will assess he has finished the task/assignment he thinks has been assigned to him & finally retire from his post-retirement career: when his Chief Acolyte declares on TV that 10% real GDP growth has been reached? (Excuse me, but is that per capita? And about those inequalities….?)

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, Banking, Congress Party, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Growth, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of exchange controls, Economics of Exchange Rates, Economics of Public Finance, Governance, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, Growth rates (economic), India's Big Business, India's Cabinet Government, India's credit markets, India's Government economists, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Banking, India's Budget, India's bureaucracy, India's Capital Markets, India's corruption, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Foreign Exchange Reserves, India's Foreign Trade, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's inflation, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Parliament, India's political lobbyists, India's pork-barrel politics, India's poverty, India's Public Finance, India's Reserve Bank, Interest group politics, Manmohan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, Sonia Gandhi. Leave a Comment »

Did the GoI’s MoF’s CEA certify India’s fiscal health yesterday? If so, it is a mistaken certificate

June 15, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy reads that Dr Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Adviser to the Finance Ministry of the Manmohan Singh Government, has “expressed great confidence in the fiscal health of the economy” and says to Kaushik:

You are unaware of that of which you wish to speak.

Posted in Academic research, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, India's Government economists, India's bureaucracy, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Public Finance, Manmohan Singh, Microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics. 2 Comments »

(Yet Another) Memo to Dr Kaushik Basu

May 17, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

Dear Kaushik,

Apropos your reported predictions, I have had to say at Facebook:

Subroto Roy is appalled the GoI’s Chief Economic Adviser has declared (as the PM and the PM’s Chief Acolyte had declared in earlier months) that prices are trending downwards stochastically but amused that at least a stochastic (“fluctuating”) trend got mentioned.

Governor Subbarao has been set a small challenge the other day to release asap for public scrutiny the comprehensive macroeconomic model he says he believes the RBI has — which may be hard if no such model may exist at the RBI. Nor does your Ministry or anyone else in New Delhi have such a model. So what is the Government’s precise scientific basis for predicting a slowing of inflation? Nothing at all?

The Government needs to begin to try to understand that inflation does not slow down in circumstances where real public debt per capita and money supply have been growing exponentially for decades — to the contrary, inflation tends to rise to dangerous heights! Debauching of fiat money would hardly have been allowed if the rupee was a hard currency because we would have seen an honest exchange-rate crashing through the floor with this kind of inflationary finance the Government has given us over the decades. There is, sad to say, zero chance of the rupee becoming a hard currency that all one billion Indians may feel confident about so long as such inflationary finance continues unabated.

Cordially yours

Suby

(Another) Memo to Dr Kaushik Basu

April 16, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy says to Kaushik: Dear Kaushik, Buffer-stock interventions are *microeconomic* in nature, and won’t do to control the *macroeconomic* phenomenon that is inflation. Get government accounting straight (and clean), try to raise government productivity *drastically* and try to *understand* the fiscal situation and *hence* the monetary situation. Feel free to email or phone. Cordially, Suby

A New Drachma? Thinking further on the need for a new Greek domestic currency to revive trade: Is the Greek/German Eurozone problem the mathematical dual of Gresham’s Law?

March 24, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Professor Nicholas Economides was a 1976 batch-mate of mine at the LSE. My view on Greece appears different. In my view, a transition to a new Drachma will be drastic but will not be any more catastrophic than the present trap Greece has put itself in.

The current path makes a fetish of the fiscal side when the problem at root has been monetary, arising from a purported monetary union, a *superficial* monetary union being created, when there were wildly different underlying fiscal histories and fiscal propensities and preferences.

Money has two main functions, being a medium of exchange and a store of value; the Euro has become too (implicitly) expensive for Greeks to be an effective medium of exchange, while the threat of a Greek default makes the Euro a risky store of value for Germans, Dutch et al. Greeks would have been hoarding Euros, reducing the velocity of circulation, and causing domestic trade to turnover more slowly and hence damaging national income; at the same time, others would have been wondering about a flight to safety outside the Euro. Introducing a soft inconvertible domestic money in Greece would allow the medium of exchange function to be fulfilled and revive domestic trade and income; it would have to be accompanied by exchange and import controls, leaving the Euro as a hard currency for external transactions. The present route being followed of trying to improve Greece’s fiscal situation by compulsion may worsen the situation without any new equilibrium path being anywhere near to be found.

The aim is to have a soft flexible inconvertible domestic currency *which facilitates, indeed stimulates, the turnover of domestic trade*, and allows equilibrium domestic relative prices to be found and adjusted towards. There would have to be a

(a) clamping down overnight on capital exports followed by forex rationing;
(b) closing the trade borders and imposing import controls (smuggling is inevitable);
(c) deciding a new price for the Drachma, say something like 500 or 1000 to the Euro (the aim is for equilibrium domestic relative prices to be adjusted towards and for domestic trade to turnover properly and expeditiously and indeed stop its collapse);
(d) exchanging all forex/Euro-denominated financial assets held by domestic residents to New Drachma-denominations at the new rate automatically;
(e) Euro-denominated liabilities incurred by domestic residents remain Euro-denominated: if it is the Government, they can negotiate how much or all if it they will repay over time; if it is private, private assets may be converted to pay it and/or there will be individual defaults or delays (restructuring) or write-offs.
(f) Exchanging all cash forex/Euro held by domestic residents to New Drachmas, through “licensed authorised dealers” as well as e.g. by ordering all commercial establishments to give New Drachma change in transactions.

Would Greece have “left the Euro”? Yes and No. It would not be part of the Euro Area but the New Drachma would be a Euro-standard currency where the Government guaranteed to buy up all Euro held by domestic residents at the fixed price in exchange for New Drachmas and held its forex reserves in Euros.

I have spent decades arguing *against* all this in the Indian case but have to say it is what Greece may need now, for a period of adjustment of half a dozen or so years.

Is the Greek/German Eurozone problem the mathematical dual of Gresham’s Law?
by Subroto Roy on Monday, 17 October 2011 at 16:13 ·

Money according to economic theory has two main functions, namely, being a medium of exchange and a store of value; I have been saying that I think the Euro has become too (implicitly) expensive for Greeks to be an effective medium of exchange, while the threat of a Greek default would make the Euro a risky store of value for Germans, Danes et al. If I am right, Greeks would have been hoarding Euros, reducing the velocity of circulation, and causing domestic trade to turnover more slowly and hence damaging national income; at the same time, the Germans, Danes et al would have been wondering about a flight to safety outside the Euro. Some young mathematical economist may take my idea and develop it it intelligently as the *dual* problem to Gresham’s law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law inasmuch as weak fiscal positions are causing, through a common money, stronger fiscal positions to weaken…

Addendum Oct 25 2011
My guess has been the Euro has become a de facto hard currency for Greeks, who will then hoard it and slow the velocity of circulation, damaging the turnover of normal domestic trade and hence damaging national income; i.e. it has become too expensive as a currency to properly fulfill the medium of exchange function of money in Greece; at the same time, Germans, Dutch and others in fiscally strong economies relatively have to account for the added risk of Greek infirmity and hence find the Euro less of a store of value than otherwise, causing incentives to flee to other denominations. Introducing a soft inconvertible domestic money in Greece would allow the medium of exchange function to be fulfilled and revive domestic trade and income; it would have to be accompanied by exchange and import controls, leaving the Euro as a hard currency for external transactions. The present route being followed of trying to improve Greece’s fiscal situation by compulsion may well worsen the situation without any new equilibrium path being anywhere near to be found.

Thinking further on the need for a new Greek domestic currency to revive trade
by Subroto Roy on Friday, 16 September 2011 at 07:35 ·

Subroto Roy: Re “it is still not clear what will actually happen”, what will happen is there will be an inevitable recognition that the introduction of the Euro was premature, probably irreversible, and likely to be catastrophic as it unwinds.

Edward Hugh Yes, well…. and apart from that little detail Suby, what else do you forsee. I absolutely agree, by the way, that these madmen (and women) have taken the global economy to the brink of disaster through their inability to listen.

Maria Tadd When words like catastrophic are used, they obviously send fear into the hearts of many. Suby and Ed, how do you envision the fall out to look like?

Subroto Roy There has to be a clear way out for a currency to exit; that has never been thought out beforehand; creating a monetary union is the *final* step from a free trade area to a customs union to an economic union to a monetary union. A purported monetary union, or rather a *superficial* monetary union was created, when there were wildly different underlying fiscal histories and fiscal propensities and preferences. Now Greece needs, as I have said over two years, an inexpensive inconvertible domestic money which allows domestic trade and savings to take place normally; the Euro would have to become a hard currency for external use.

Edward Hugh Do you mean like what has been happening in Croatia Suby?
Subroto Roy I am afraid I have to admit ignorance of Europe’s facts, what I am working on is my (quite sound) knowledge of monetary economics acquired from Hahn, Friedman, Walters, ACL Day, Griffths, Hicks via Miller, etc. Thinking about Greece overnight: if the Euro has become a de facto hard currency there, its velocity of circulation will fall as people tend to hoard it, causing domestic transactions & trade and hence national income to fall too; hence further the need for an inexpensive domestic currency (under capital controls) for domestic trade and transactions to be revived.

(Capital controls imply import restrictions and the rationing of foreign exchange so Greeks will not be big tourists in the rest of the world for a while but what the heck they have so much to see in their own country.)

From Facebook Oct 3 2011:
Subroto Roy:

“What I have said for two years now is that Greece needs to introduce a soft inconvertible domestic money to facilitate domestic trade and revive growth; it would have to be accompanied by import controls and forex rationing with the Euro becoming a hard currency in Greece for external transactions. Why? Because the Euro has probably become a de facto hard currency for Greeks who would then tend to hoard it, slowing velocity of circulation and causing domestic transactions to be reduced. (At the same time, Germans, Danes and others have an incentive to leave the Euro for the safety of some other hard currency in view of a possible Greek default.) Money has two main functions, being a store of value and a medium of exchange. In present circumstances, the Euro is becoming a dubious store of value for the Germans et al while becoming too scarce to be a proper medium of exchange for the Greeks. All this is good standard monetary economics, which no one in the ECB, IMF, financial journalism etc somehow seems to be able to recall. Instead they have made a fetish of the fiscal side, and that is destined to neither address the root problem nor to bring civil peace….”

My “Reverse Euro” Model of June 1998, and my writings on a new money for Greece: letter to the Wolfson Economics Prize donors by Subroto Royon Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 18:51 ·

Hello,
In June 1998, I gave an invited lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs on a “Reverse Euro” model for India, i.e., on how India could and should consider creating (under certain conditions) more than a dozen state-monies to coexist with a national currency too in the interests of a better fisc and some slight pretence to monetary integrity. In doing so, I also expressed my very grave foreboding about what the Euro was intended to be doing the following year in actual practice in Europe; I remember visiting a prominent British Euro-optimist too and making my argument in contrast about the Euro’s arrival.

Subsequently, Milton Friedman and I corresponded too about my idea, and he found merit in it in describing an exit route for, he said, Italy for example, if that country needed such an exit route given its fiscal condition to depart from the Euro in due course. I also talked briefly about the subject at an invited lecture at the Reserve Bank of India in April 2000, as well as elsewhere.

Over the last two years, I have (and I think was the first to do so) suggested Greece needs a New Drachma, and how this should be gone about. This has been outlined by me with many economists informally by email, as well as discussed at Facebook at some length.

I have little doubt what I am saying is broadly right — in the sense that it is the most consistent with the formal body of economic theory known as monetary economics. I was taught monetary economics very well in the mid 1970s at the LSE by, for example, ACL Day, Alan Walters, Brian Griffiths, Marcus Miller (a student of JR Hicks) and others which came to be followed by my doctoral dissertation at Cambridge under Frank Hahn, and postdoctoral work in America with Jim Buchanan. Plus Milton Friedman became a friend and stood for me as an expert witness in a US federal court (the only time he ever did that)! My most recent work is a book edited with John Clark titled Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant published by Continuum in 2005 — that has an essay relevant to this subject commissioned by us and done by Patrick Minford of Cardiff.

So I do plan to write something for your prize but whatever I do write will not be worth the vast sum of money you are offering — in fact, I would say you need to break it up into little bits in due course and parcel it out to the most fruitful ideas. The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing… This is a fox problem, not a hedgehog one. Perhaps you should commission a journal or a multi-essay volume or a set of volumes or monographs rather than hand out one big cheque to someone who will not deserve it. (And please say no more about the moneys the Bank of Sweden gives away every year in the name of the advancement of knowledge in economics…)

The problem you have raised is a fundamental one and should have been raised decades ago, not merely by Eurosceptics in the occasional lecture or newspaper article but in many formal academic doctoral theses and journals all over Europe, long before the Euro came to be introduced — and note that the jump from the unification of Germany (with the 1:1 DM:Ostmark problem) was less than a decade before that. That did not happen. So now your belated initiative is most welcome, better late than never, better something than nothing.

Do let me know please what else I need to know to send in my theoretical thoughts on this.

Cordially

Suby Roy

From Facebook

February 21 2012

My idea has been far better (because it is based on standard monetary economics which the ECB, IMF etc bureaucrats appear to have all forgotten or never learnt) …

[Devaluation refers to exchange-rates. There are no exchange-rates, that is precisely the problem; exchange-rates are prices, and as such market signals. By getting rid of them, market signals were lost. The point I am making in my notes is that there is still an *implicit* shadow exchange-rate if you like, so the Euro being used in Greece actually has a different local price in terms of real goods and services than the same Euro being used in Germany!]

Hans Suter: A Drachma at a discount of 40% would certainly push tourism by a 20% ? That would be a 3 to 4% jump of GDP.)

Subroto Roy: A New Drachma can be at 0.1 of a Euro, or less. But at least *local* trade and business will be revived and slowly national income will grow. The Greeks will feel free and self-confident and sovereign. Yes they cannot buy any more BMWs or tour Paris or Italy any more. But they can go and visit the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids perhaps. [And they can take 100 years to repay their Euro debts instead of 50 years...]

Subroto Roy hears “If the Baltics can, then why not Greece?”, and says the Baltics are the Baltics, God Bless them, Greece is Greece… I have no idea about the Baltics. The closest I got to them was an Estonian friend in Helsinki many years ago. In Greece what I am saying is that the money that is being used, the Euro, is no longer a natural money, and for that matter, it never was a natural money — money and banking evolve naturally out of trade and commerce, and to truck, barter and exchange are natural human propensities. Creating a monetary union is the *final* step from a free trade area to a customs union to an economic union to a monetary union. A purported monetary union, or rather a *superficial* monetary union was created, when there were wildly different underlying fiscal histories and fiscal propensities and preferences. The Euro has been an artificial money that eradicated the vital market signalling function that exchange-rates played (since exchange-rates are prices). A new inconvertible soft domestic money for Greece would allow domestic transactions to turnover properly once more and hence revive trade and national income. Greece could still be “in” the Eurozone nominally in the sense of having a fixed exchange-rate with the Euro which would be used for external trade. But there would have to be capital controls and import controls and foreign exchange rationing. At least for a while, probably a long while. Greece’s Euro debt would take 100 years instead of 50 years to repay. But at least the Greeks would feel free and sovereign and self-confident again, and adjust to their domestic economic realities in peace.

From Facebook May 14 2012
Diran Majarian
“The big issue here is how to deal with the debt overhang after the drachma transition since this must apply to both assets and liabilities.”

Subroto Roy The New Drachma has to be an inconvertible soft currency and Greece has to have import controls and capital export controls. Euro denominated assets held by domestic residents become Drachma-denominated (at a fixed, not a market-determined rate, e.g. 1:500 or 1:1000); Euro-denominated liabilities incurred by domestic residents remain Euro-denominated: if it is the Government, they can negotiate how much or all if it they will repay over time; if it is private, private assets may be converted to pay it and/or there will be individual defaults or delays (restructuring) or write-offs.

May 14 2012
The famous Professor Wilhelm Buiter (Cambridge BA 1971, Yale PhD 1975) has said this? “The instant before Greece exits it (somehow) introduces a new currency (the New Drachma or ND, say). Assume for simplicity that at the moment of its introduction the exchange rate between the ND and the euro is 1 for 1. This currency then immediately depreciates sharply vis-à-vis the euro (by 40 percent seems a reasonable point estimate). All pre-existing financial instruments and contracts under Greek law are redenominated into ND at the 1 for 1 exchange rate. What this means is that, as soon as the possibility of a Greek exit becomes known, there will be a bank run in Greece and denial of further funding to any and all entities, private or public, through instruments and contracts under Greek law. Holders of existing euro-denominated contracts under Greek law want to avoid their conversion into ND and the subsequent sharp depreciation of the ND. The Greek banking system would be destroyed even before Greece had left the euro area”…

Excuse me? This from the Chief Economist at Citi bank and “Professor of European Political Economy” at my alma mater, the London School of Economics and Political Science? What a load of rubbish Professor Buiter! Whom did you learn your monetary economics from? OK, ok, I should be polite: what makes you think a 1:1 exchange-rate should be fixed? Why not 1:500? Or 1:1000? The aim is to have a soft flexible inconvertible domestic currency *which facilitates, indeed stimulates, the turnover of domestic trade*, and allows equilibrium domestic relative prices to be found and adjusted towards. And why should Greece default on its Euro debt?! It might merely take a little longer to repay it. The change in currency is a conceptually distinct problem from that of credit-worthiness. Here is what I have said instead over two years, and for free:

Reintroducing the New Drachma would require

(a) clamping down overnight on capital exports followed by forex rationing;
(b) closing the trade borders and imposing import controls;
(c) deciding a new price for the Drachma, I would say something like 500 or 1000 to the Euro (the aim is for equilibrium domestic relative prices to be adjusted towards and for domestic trade to turnover properly and expeditiously and indeed stop its collapse);
(d) exchanging all forex/Euro-denominated financial assets held by domestic residents to New Drachma-denominations at the new rate automatically;
(e) exchanging all cash forex/Euro held by domestic residents to New Drachmas, through “licensed authorised dealers” as well as e.g. by ordering all commercial establishments to give New Drachma change in transactions. Would Greece have “left the Euro”? Yes and No. It would not be part of the Euro Area but the New Drachma would be a Euro-standard currency where the Government guaranteed to buy up all Euro held by domestic residents at the fixed price in exchange for New Drachmas and held its forex reserves in Euros.

A New Drachma?
From Facebook:
April 29 2010:
Subroto Roy thinks a New Drachma is inevitable sooner or later but remains deeply puzzled at the possible ways it may get reintroduced. The examples of such monetary reforms are all long gone from memory, in the immediate aftermath of WWII. It seems clear the Euro will become an increasingly scarce currency not suitable for fulfilling the normal medium of exchange function in domestic Greek transactions and will become a rationed hard currency under capital controls for external transactions only. It may already be hard or impossible to restrain a capital flight, perhaps underway. How will the actual transition be made? Perhaps by allowing Greek government debt denominated in a new local money, call it the New Drachma, to become tradeable? I said in my *Reverse Euro* model for India lecture in June 1998 at London’s IEA that the Eurozone could end up looking less like America’s monetary union than India’s.

April 8 2010:
Subroto Roy, reading “It is hard to know how to interpret this large decline in deposits”, says “Not really. The Euro is becoming a *scarce hard currency* in Greece, i.e., it is becoming too expensive to use Euros to satisfy Greece’s transactions demand for money, the medium of exchange function, hence Greece has an increasing need for a new local currency which will satisfy that function while the Euro is retained for use in Greece’s international transactions”.

Subroto Roy thinks the only sustainable long-term solution may be the reintroduction of a New Drachma, which will need time to stabilize behind a period of foreign exchange controls and rationing. The DM/FFr-based Euro would become a hard currency relative to a New Drachma.

March 24 2010:
Subroto Roy expects the US, Britain, ANZ and everyone else in the IMF who is not in the Eurozone may legitimately ask why the effective subsidy of Greece by its Eurozone partners should be transferred to the rest of the world.
Subroto Roy thinks the Europeans have enough clout in the IMF to, say, insist some of their own IMF-directed resources be directed towards Greece specifically, which would spell the unravelling of the IMF if it became a general habit.

Subroto Roy says “I had a very productive few months in 1993 as a high-level consultant working for Hubert Neiss at the IMF (consultants are, or at least were, very rare at the IMF unlike at the World Bank etc) when I came to understand a little of how the place works (leaving aside all the theory). The French Managing Director is a politician and not an economist or even a central banker, and I am sure France and Germany can swing some IMF money towards Greece. But of course, the IMF can by definition give no *monetary* or exchange-rate advice to Greece because there is no sovereign monetary authority in Greece any more. Hence all it can do is add the same fiscal (and political) advice and conditions as the rest of the Eurozone countries have done plus make the piggy bank larger with some IMF money. It may work once, but if France and Germany then say, right, Portugal, Spain, Italy are next in line, that is the end of the IMF, because its European members may as well be asked to pull out altogether. On the other hand, my radical advice to the IMF might have been to propose to help Greece to reintroduce the drachma and re-establish a sovereign monetary authority of its own, which would take IMF advice and expertise as a New Drachma would take time to stabilize and there would be a period of capital controls on foreign exchange transactions.”

Subroto Roy gave a Jun ’98 lecture at London’s IEA on why India should have a *Reverse-Euro* model: eg 16 major states have their own (domestic) monies with a national rupee coexisting too & free currency markets everywhere. I said I feared a Eurozone may end up *looking like India* rather than the US in this. India has papered over wild fiscal mismanagement by the States by even wilder fiscal mismanagement by the Union!

Subroto Roy says Europe could have been a confederation & an economic union for practical purposes without individual monetary sovereignties being lost. E.g., the drachma or peso or escudo or punt or lira could each have chosen to appropriately link to some combination of the DM, FFR, sterling etc. And a Europe-wide Euro from an ECB could have coexisted as well.

Subroto Roy finds Mr Constanzo mention Gresham’s Law, and says, “Certainly there might have been currency competition in Europe, and some of the smaller currencies may have chosen to go to *that* Euro — but DM would not have done, and would have been an alternative to it.”

Subroto Roy thought imposing a single newly invented money on different economies a bit like imposing a single newly invented language (like Esperanto) on different peoples.

Subroto Roy says India has papered over the wild fiscal mismanagement by the States by even wilder fiscal mismanagement by the Union!

Subroto Roy thinks the effective subsidy French farmers et al were getting from Germany in pre-Euro days all came to be subsumed within Euro-economics; an alternative would have been to *leave* DM as it was, & perhaps FFR too, & to have introduced a Euro for smaller economies to use (presumably to save transactions costs);*that* Euro could have been linked to the DM etc. The Germans would have been happy & the problems avoided.

Subroto Roy says German unification hit the Germans badly enough and they seem hardly in any mood to keep on playing Sugar-Daddy to everyone else while still having to defer to the putative victors of WWII (France and Britain) for political leadership.

The One-Minute Subroto Roy Estimate of Per Capita Real GDP Growth in India & Other Interesting Things

March 17, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy notes New Delhi’s policy-makers, after being blasted by him for five years, yesterday admitted inflation is in “double-digits”. Better late than never! Now, let’s see, top up 5% Errors, Omissions & Other Misunderestimations, 2% population, & what was that Money Supply Growth? 22%? The One Minute Subroto Roy Estimate of Real Per Capita GDP Growth in India then becomes 22-10-5-2= 5%. Economic Inequality? Don’t even ask…

Subroto Roy notes that of the four others who were appointed by Rajiv on 25 Sep 1990, following his solitary 18 Sep meeting, two have been now mendacious in print: one, exposed in Nov 2007, fell silent thereafter given the magnitude of the lie, the other has engaged last week in his perennial bluff, waffle & *suppressio veri*. The General is probably the least mendacious of the four but too old now & too distant from Delhi.

Subroto Roy thinks the Americans have made some epistemological mistakes in their search for Osama, e.g.. in assuming the search is merely for, as it were, a lanky basketball player who has gone AWOL or is playing truant, rather than someone who is seen as a highly respected hero in the Muslim world. For example, Osama does not have to go to dialysis, dialysis comes to him.

Subroto Roy says Osama will not be found if he is being looked for in the wrong places. As I have said since at least 2006, he is probably in a comfortable oasis in the North African desert.

Subroto Roy reads Hans Suter say “suddenly the Swiss Franc looks once again attractive” and adds “I would bet on the Ozzie dollar too… Oh I have not even looked at where it is…. going by the problems of the Eurozone, USA, Japan, sterling alone… “

Subroto Roy recalls, in memory of St Patrick’s Day, hitchhiking through the Republic of Ireland in March-April 1975, all the way from Dublin to Killarney and back, hearing about places where the IRA trained its fighters, spending a night in a barn, and drinking a lot of Guinness on every day except Sunday when, for one hour, everyone went to Church..

Subroto Roy said to his father earlier this evening that he feels he has said and done what he can for India’s economy (and will wait for New Delhi to catch up if it wishes or is able to). …

Subroto Roy thinks both the PRC and the West are wrong about the yuan problem in its fundamentals. What the PRC needs to work towards is making its currency a *hard currency* of the world economy: that means getting its government accounting, public
finances and monetary economics right — which is something *much* harder to do and *vastly* more important than any specific fixed exchange rate of the yuan at a given time with the USD. Learn from what Milton Friedman said in the PRC in the Fall of 1988, see his memoirs with Rose D Friedman titled *Two Lucky People*, Chicago 1998 — a book in which a young man with my name is mentioned too ….

Posted in China's macroeconomics, China's Economy, Economic Policy, Government of India, India's Government economists, India's inflation, Inflation, Ireland. 2 Comments »

Memo to Dr Kaushik Basu

February 28, 2010 — drsubrotoroy

Dr Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance

Hello Kaushik,

Long time no see. Happy Holi 2010.

I was glad to see the phrase “the relatively neglected subject of the micro-foundations of macroeconomic policy” mentioned in Chapter 2 of your document for the GoI a few days ago.

But I am unable to see what you could mean by it because your chapter seems devoid of any reference or allusion to the vast discussion over decades of the subject known as the “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics”. Namely, the attempt to integrate the theory of value (microeconomics) with the theory of money (macroeconomics); or alternatively, the attempt to comprehend aggregate variables like Consumption, Savings, Investment, the Demand for & Supply of Money etc in conceptual terms rooted in theories of constrained optimization by masses of individual people.

It is not an easy task. Keynes made no explicit attempt at it (recall Joan Robinson’s famous quip) and probably did not have time or patience to try. Hicks and Patinkin failed, though after valiant efforts. The modern period on this work began with Clower and Leijonhufvud, followed by the French (like Grandmont), and especially Frank Hahn. Hahn’s 1976 IMSSS paper “Keynesian Economics and General Equilibrium Theory” is the survey to read, viz., Equilibrium and Macroeconomics and Money, Stability and Growth as well as of course Arrow & Hahn’s General Competitive Analysis. You may agree that the general theory of value culminated in an important sense in the Arrow-Debreu model of the 1950s – yet that is something in which no money, and hence no macroeconomics, needs to or can really appear. The hard part is to develop macroeconomic models for policy-discussion which allow for money and public finance while still making some pretence of being rooted in a theory of constrained optimization by individuals, i.e., in microeconomic behaviour. (E Roy Weintraub wrote a textbook with “Microfoundations” in its title.)

In the Indian case, I tried to do a little in my Cambridge PhD thesis thirty years ago: “a full frontal assault from the point of view of microeconomic theory on the ‘development planning’ to which everyone routinely declared their fidelity, from New Delhi’s bureaucrats and Oxford’s ‘development’ school to McNamara’s World Bank with its Indian staffers”. Frank Hahn was very kind to say he thought my “critique of Development Economics was powerful not only on methodological but also on economic theory grounds”. Some of the results appeared in my December 1982 talk to the AEA’s NYC meetings “Economic Theory & Development Economics” (World Development 1983), and in my 1984 monograph with London’s IEA. Dr Manmohan Singh received a copy of the latter work in 1986, as well as, in 1993, a published copy of a work presented to Rajiv Gandhi in 1990, Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s.

I am glad to see from your Chapter 2 that the GoI now seems to agree with what I had said in 1984 of the need for systems that “locally include direct subsidies to those (whether in rural or urban areas) who are unable to provide any income for themselves…” Your material on the “enabling State” would also find much support in what I said there about the functions of civil government and the need for better, not necessarily more, government. On the other hand, your reliance on the very expensive (Rs.19 billion this year!) Nandan Nilekani Numbering idea is odd as there seem to me to be insurmountable “incentive-compatibility” problems with that project no matter how much gets spent on it.

Returning to possible “microfoundations of macroeconomics” relevant to the Indian case, you may find of interest

“India’s Macroeconomics” (2007)

“Fiscal Instability” (2007)

“Fallacious Finance” (2007)

“Monetary Integrity and the Rupee” (2008)

“Growth and Government Delusion” (2008)

“India in World Trade & Payments” (2007)

“Our Policy Process” (2007)

“Indian Money and Credit” (2006)

“Indian Money and Banking” (2006)

“Indian Inflation” (2008)

“Growth of Real Income, Money & Prices in India 1869-2004” (2005)

“How to Budget” (2008)

“The Dream Team: A Critique” (2006)

“Against Quackery” (2007)

“Mistaken Macroeconomics” (2009)

These together outline an idea that the link between macroeconomic policy in India and individual microeconomic budgets of our one billion citizens arises via the “Government Budget Constraint”. More specifically, the continual deficit-finance indulged in by the GoI for decades has been paid for by invisible taxation of nominal assets, causing the general money-price of real goods and services to rise. I.e., the GoI’s wild deficit spending over the decades has been paid for by debauching money through inflation.

(The unrecorded untaxed “black economy” needs a separate chapter altogether, and it seems to me possible it provides enough real income and transactions to be absorbing some of the wilder money supply growth into its hoards.)

India cannot be a major economy of the world until and unless the Rupee some day becomes a hard currency — for the first time in many decades, indeed perhaps for the first time since the start of fiat money. It is going to take much more than the GoI inventing a trading symbol for the Rupee! The appalling state of our government accounting, public finance and monetary policy, caused by the GoI over decades, disallows this from happening any time soon as domestic bank assets (mostly GoI debt, and mostly held by government banks) would inevitably be re-evaluated at world prices foreshadowing a monetary crisis. Perhaps you will help slow the rot — I trust you will not add to it.

Cordially yours

Suby Roy

Postscript March 1 2010: I recalled it as Joan Robinson’s quip, had forgotten it was in fact her quoting Gerald Shove’s quip: “Keynes was not interested in the theory of relative prices. Gerald Shove used to say that Maynard had never spent the twenty minutes necessary to understand the theory of value.” (1963)

Climate Change Alarmism: The real battle is against corruption, pollution, deforestation, energy waste etc

December 18, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Last year I wrote but happened not to publish this brief article which may be relevant today.

Climate Change Alarmism: The real battle is against corruption, pollution, deforestation, energy waste etc

Subroto Roy
May 28 2008

Like the AIDS epidemic that never was, “climate change” is on its way to becoming the new myth sold by paternalist governments and their bureaucrat/scientist busybodies to ordinary people coping with their normal lives. E.g., someone says, without any trace of irony: “Everyone in the world should have the same emissions quota. Since Trotsky’s permanent revolution is unfortunately on hold at the moment, and the world still happens to be partitioned into nations, once the per capita quotas are determined they would have to be grouped on a nationwide basis”.

Trotskyism will have to be made of sterner stuff. Canada’s Lorne Gunter (*National Post* 20 May 2008) reports that Noel Keenlyside, the principal scientist who suggested that man-made global warming exists, has now led a team from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and Max Planck Institute of Meteorology which “for the first time entered verifiable data on ocean circulation cycles into one of the UN’s climate supercomputers, and the machine spit out a projection that there will be no more warming for the foreseeable future.…” Oops! So much for impending catastrophe. Rajendra Pachauri himself has in January “reluctantly admitted to Reuters… that there has been no warming so far in the 21st Century”.

Mr Pachauri had earlier gone on Indian television comparing himself to CV Raman and Mother Theresa as an Indian Nobel Prize winner — in fact, Al Gore and the 2500 member “UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” chaired by Mr Pachauri shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Now the prediction from that UN “Panel” of “a 0.3 deg C rise in temperature in the coming decade” has been contradicted by Noel Keenlyside’s own scientific results. Gunter reports further that 2007 “saw a drop in the global average temperature of nearly 0.7 deg C (the largest single-year movement up or down since global temperature averages have been calculated). Despite advanced predictions that 2007 would be the warmest year on record, made by such UN associates as Britain’s Hadley Centre, a government climate research agency, 2007 was the coolest year since at least 1993. According to the U. S. National Climatic Data Centre, the average temperature of the global land surface in January 2008 was below the 20th-Century mean for the first time since 1982. Also in January, Southern Hemisphere sea ice coverage was at its greatest summer level (January is summer in the Southern Hemisphere) in the past 30 years. Neither the 3,000 temperature buoys that float throughout the world’s oceans nor the eight NASA satellites that float above our atmosphere have recorded appreciable warming in the past six to eight years. Climate alarmists the world over were quick to add that they had known all along there would be periods when the Earth’s climate would cool even as the overall trend was toward dangerous climate change.”

Honest government doctors know that the myth that HIV/AIDS can spread at Western rates in a society as conservative and sexless as India’s has diverted vast public resources away from India’s numerous real killer diseases: filariasis, dysentery, leprosy, influenza, malaria, gastroenteritis, TB, whooping cough, enteric fever, infectious hepatitis, gonococcal infection, syphilis, measles, tetanus, chicken-pox, cholera, rabies, diptheria, meningococcal infection, poliomelitis, dengue and haemmorrhagic fever and encephalitis. Candid environmentalists similarly know that obsessing about climate change distracts from what is significant and within our power to do, namely, the prevention or at least regulation of the pollution of our air and water and prevention of the waste of energy using policies appropriate for a myriad of local communities and neighbourhoods.

The pollution of India’s atmosphere, rivers, lakes, roads and public property is an unending disgrace. Pollution and corruption are mirror images of each other: corruption is to steal something valuable that belongs to the public; pollution is to dispose private waste into the public domain. Both occur conspicuously where property rights between public and private domains are vague or fuzzy, where pricing of public and private goods and services is distorted, and where judicial and legal processes enforcing contracts are for whatever reason weak or inoperable.

Walk into any government office in India and lights, fans, ACs may be found working at top speed whether or not any living being can be seen. A few rare individual bureaucrats may be concerned but India’s Government as a whole cares not a hoot if public electricity or for that matter any public funds and resources are being wasted, stolen or abused.
At the same time, private motorists face little disincentive from pouring untaxed “black money” into imported gas-guzzling heavy automobiles regardless of India’s narrow roads and congestion. There are no incentives whatsoever for anyone who does not have to do so to want to bicycle or walk to work. The “nuclear deal” involves importing “six to eight lightwater reactors” on a turnkey basis; like the Enron-Dabhol deal a decade ago, it makes no financial sense at all and will make even less if the rupee depreciates anytime in future. Our government policy is in general invented and carried out regardless of technical or financial feasibility; the waste of energy and pollution of the environment are merely examples of the waste of resources and abuse of public property in general.

Someone says “The North”, mainly the USA, “is primarily responsible for climate change”. He may mean Western countries have contributed relatively more pollutants and effluents into the world’s waters and air which is probably a good guess since the West has also contributed more to the world’s scientific, industrial and agricultural progress in general over the centuries.

But to think human beings today understand the complexities of climate and its changes adequately enough to be able to control it is a fatal conceit. Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London, is among many scientists who have challenged “the key contradiction at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol, the global climate agreement – that climate is one of the most complex systems known, yet that we can manage it by trying to control a small set of factors, namely greenhouse gas emissions. Scientifically, this is not mere uncertainty: it is a lie…The problem with a chaotic coupled non-linear system as complex as climate is that you can no more predict successfully the outcome of doing something as of not doing something. Kyoto will not halt climate change. Full stop.” (BBC 25 February 2002). For Indian foreign or economic policy to waffle on about climate change is as ineffectual and irrelevant as for the Indian Finance Minister to waffle on about AIDS.

“On the blissful innocence of the RBI” (2009), plus “A Small Challenge to the RBI’s Governor Subbarao”(2010)

December 11, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy can only sigh at the fact that while he has had to struggle for 35 years trying to grasp and then apply serious monetary economics to India’s circumstances, the RBI Governor & his four Deputy Governors appear blissfully innocent of all Hicks, Tobin, Friedman, Cagan et al yet exude confidence enough to “Waffle Away!”

Reflections on Mr Zoellick’s reported claim

December 5, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy says that there are no viable macroeconomic models or time series data in the possession of the World Bank, IMF, the Govt of India’s Finance Ministry, Planning Commission, Reserve Bank etc, or any professor from Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford to the University of Timbuctoo to justify the reported claim yesterday of World Bank President Robert Zoellick that India is headed to “8-9% growth”. Growth may be higher, may be lower or something else altogether, no one knows because national income measurements have yet to reach SNA standards (in any case it should be *per capita real GDP*… and *even then*, there is no adjustment for inequality...)…

What *is* clear though is that Indian public finance at Union and State level is a mess and paper money has been growing at more than 20% per annum…. (And if you happen to believe the Government of India’s apologists and propagandists about Indian inflation being in single digits, might I interest you in a marble structure in Agra, or a steel bridge over the Hooghly perhaps? Very nice, just like Brooklyn Bridge itself….)

Finance Minister Mukherjee deserves a cheer for connecting with economics (though half a cheer gets subtracted)

November 15, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook today

Independent India’s Finance Ministers have never in 62 years referred to economic theory or the history of economic thought until Mr Mukherjee delivered the 4th Kadirgamar Memorial Lecture in Colombo yesterday, making the following academic claim:
“As students of economics would understand, economic theory is an evolutionary process and undergoes change with every major crisis. The classical theory gave way to Keynesian economics after the Great Depression of 1930s. Thereafter, there were post-Keynesian and monetarist approaches to economic problems during 1960s to 90s. The present crisis, which has also been called Great Recession, would be another watershed in the evolution of economics and is expected to bring about radical retooling of the theory. The crisis has, in the first place, conclusively established that the pursuit of individual goals do not necessarily lead to public good. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ cannot guarantee allocation of resources efficiently.”

I might rather count this as intellectual progress to the extent that it at least allows the Government of India’s economists the possibility of moving away from politically-induced dissimulation and instead begin to connect with where I was 25 years ago in my May 1984 monograph published by London’s Institute of Economic Affairs (leave aside my 1976-82 doctoral thesis under Professor Frank Hahn at Cambridge “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”). As for the Finance Minister saying “The Indian economy has shown remarkable resilience to the crisis because the financial system had no exposure to the toxic assets”, I am afraid he has left unsaid that this is because (a) the rupee is not a hard currency; and (b) India’s banks hold plenty of domestic assets that are “toxic”.

Subroto Roy

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, America's mortgage crisis, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, India's Government economists, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Banking, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Public Finance, Institute of Economic Affairs, Macroeconomics, Monetary Theory, Money and banking. Leave a Comment »

An observation about official economic thought in India

November 14, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy wonders if India’s most eminent academic economist and India’s most eminent government economist have either of them ever said anything that any member of any audience could ever have found at all disagreeable….

(let aside falsifiable in the sense of Karl Popper)

(… except that I have of course disagreed with both…)

Posted in Academic economics, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, India's Government economists, India's nomenclatura, Karl Popper. Leave a Comment »

Has business-cycle theory become easy for the dimwitted?

November 13, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy is amazed that business-cycle theory and history — always a most difficult, subtle and confusing part of economics — has now become child’s play for everyone except himself, and even the most dimwitted commentator claims to know that China and India were down last month but now seem up and similar profound truths….

Posted in Academic economics, China's macroeconomics, China's savings rate, China's Economy, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, India's Government economists, India's savings rate, India's Macroeconomics, Macroeconomics. Leave a Comment »

My choices dated Oct 11 for the 2009 “Economics Nobel Prize”

October 11, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Subroto Roy announces that if he was awarding the 2009 “Economics Nobel” it would go to Frank Horace Hahn and Anna Jacobson Schwartz: each for a lifetime of contributions to economic theory and monetary economics specifically relevant to the macroeconomic crises of recent years….Hahn’s Non-Walrasian theory provides a logic to what has happened; Schwartz predicted it and has diagnosed it better than anyone else.

Certainly the appalling state of academic economics is manifest in the self-written self-serving Wikipedia entries of the many Elmer & Mrs Fudd Professors of Gobbledygook at Ivy U…. all in the hope of getting noticed by the bookies in England quoting odds… and thereby considering themselves Nobel hopefuls…. (“has been mentioned as a possible winner…”)…

Posted in Academic economics, Anna Schwartz, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Frank Hahn, General equilbrium theory, Macroeconomics, Monetary Theory, Nobel Prizes. Leave a Comment »

My book “Philosophy of Economics” on the Internet

October 8, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

I find on the Internet today my 1989 book (in its 1991 paperback edition) Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry, the first economics book in Routledge’s International Library of Philosophy.

For reviews and comments, see Apropos “Philosophy of Economics”

Subroto Roy

Kolkata

Posted in Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Epistemology of Economics, Philosophy of Economics. Leave a Comment »

America has yet to play the demographic card: a few million new immigrants would happily buy up all those bad mortgages

October 3, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

Mr Tim Cavanaugh’s clear-headed criticism of a principal government economist’s waffle seems to me apt and exactly on target. E.g. he says: “The real purpose here is Panglossian: to convince you that whatever Power does is the right thing to do, and to discredit the idea that government should ever again reduce its presence in the private sector.”

In an article dated Sep 18 2008 titled “October 1929? Not!”, I argued “that the American economy and the world economy are both incomparably larger today in the value of their capital stock, and there has also been enormous technological progress over eight decades. Accordingly, it would take a much vaster event than the present turbulence — say, something like an exchange of multiple nuclear warheads with Russia causing Manhattan and the City of London to be destroyed — before there was a return to something comparable to the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression that followed.” A few weeks later in “America’s divided economists” I said

“Beyond the short run, the US may play the demographic card by inviting in a few million new immigrants (if nativist feelings hostile to the outsider or newcomer can be controlled, especially in employment). Bad mortgages and foreclosures would vanish as people from around the world who long to live in America buy up all those empty houses and apartments, even in the most desolate or dismal locations. If the US’s housing supply curve has moved so far to the right that the equilibrium price has gone to near zero, the surest way to raise the equilibrium price would be by causing a new wave of immigration leading to a new demand curve arising at a higher level. Such proposals seek to address the problem at its source. They might have been expected from the Fed’s economists. Instead, ESSA speaks of massive government purchase and control of bad assets “downriver”, without any attempt to face the problem at its source. This makes it merely wishful to think such assets can be sold for a profit at a later date so taxpayers will eventually gain. It is as likely as not the bad assets remain bad assets.”

Restoring a worldwide idea of an American dream fuelled by mass immigration may be the surest way for the American economy to restore itself. America was at its best when it was open to mass immigration, and America is at its worst when it treats immigrants with racism and worse.

Posted in America's housing market, America's mortgage crisis, American financial crises, Crash of 1929, Credit markets, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economics of housing markets, Economics of real estate valuation, Great Depression, Great Tremor of 2008, Microeconomics. 1 Comment »

Finally, a dozen years late, the Sonia-Manmohan Congress takes a small Rajivist step: Yes Prime Minister, our Judiciary is indeed a premier public good (or example of “infrastructure” to use that dreadful bureaucratic term)

August 18, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

I was very harsh and did not beat about the bush in my Sep 23-24 2007 article in The Statesman “Against Quackery” when I said in its subtitle

“Manmohan and Sonia have violated Rajiv Gandhi’s intended reforms”.

I said inter alia

“WASTE, fraud and abuse are inevitable in the use and allocation of public property and resources in India as elsewhere, but Government is supposed to fight and resist such tendencies. The Sonia-Manmohan Government have done the opposite, aiding and abetting a wasteful anti-economics ~ i.e., an economic quackery. Vajpayee-Advani and other Governments, including Narasimha-Manmohan in 1991-1996, were just as complicit in the perverse policy-making. So have been State Governments of all regional parties like the CPI-M in West Bengal, DMK/ AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Congress/NCP/ BJP/Sena in Maharashtra, TDP /Congress in Andhra Pradesh, SP/BJP/BSP in Uttar Pradesh etc. Our dismal politics merely has the pot calling the kettle black while national self-delusion and superstition reign in the absence of reason. The general pattern is one of well-informed, moneyed, mostly city-based special interest groups (especially including organised capital and organised labour) dominating government agendas at the cost of ill-informed, diffused anonymous individual citizens ~ peasants, small businessmen, non-unionized workers, old people, housewives, medical students etc….Rajiv Gandhi had a sense of noblesse oblige out of remembrance of his father and maternal grandfather. After his assassination, the comprador business press credited Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh with having originated the 1991 economic reform. In May 2002, however, the Congress Party itself passed a resolution proposed by Digvijay Singh explicitly stating Rajiv and not either of them was to be so credited. The resolution was intended to flatter Sonia Gandhi but there was truth in it too. Rajiv, a pilot who knew no political economy, was a quick learner with intelligence to know a good idea when he saw one and enough grace to acknowledge it. …Rajiv was entirely convinced when the suggestion was made to him in September 1990 that an enormous infusion of public resources was needed into the judicial system for promotion and improvement of the Rule of Law in the country, a pre-requisite almost for a new market orientation. Capitalism without the Rule of Law can quickly degenerate into an illiberal hell of cronyism and anarchy which is what has tended to happen since 1991. The resources put since Independence to the proper working of our judiciary from the Supreme Court and High Courts downwards have been abysmal, while the state of prisons, borstals, mental asylums and other institutions of involuntary detention is nothing short of pathetic. Only police forces, like the military, paramilitary and bureaucracies, have bloated in size….Neither Sonia-Manmohan nor the BJP or Communists have thought promotion of the Rule of Law in India to be worth much serious thought ~ certainly less important than attending bogus international conclaves and summits to sign expensive deals for arms, aircraft, reactors etc. Yet Rajiv Gandhi, at a 10 Janpath meeting on 23 March 1991 when he received the liberalisation proposals he had authorized, explicitly avowed the importance of greater resources towards the Judiciary. Dr Singh and his acolytes were not in that loop, indeed they precisely represented the bureaucratic ancien regime intended to be changed, and hence have seemed quite uncomprehending of the roots of the intended reforms ever since 1991.”

Days after the article appeared there were press reports Dr Singh was murmuring about quitting, and then came a fierce speech in Hindi from the Congress President saying “enemies” would receive their dues or whatever – only to be retracted a few days later saying that no more had been meant than a local critique of the BJP in Haryana politics! (Phew! I said to myself in relief…)

Today I am very happy to learn that Dr Manmohan Singh spoke on Sunday of the importance of the Rule of Law and an effective and efficient judiciary. The new Law Minister in the second Sonia-Manmohan Government has been eagerly saying the same.

All this is constructive and positive, late as it is since Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh both became heavy-duty Congress Party politicians for the first time a dozen years ago.

I was privileged to advise a previous Congress President in his last months from September 1990 as has been told elsewhere. And six years before that I had said:

“….….The most serious examples of the malfunctioning of civil government in India are probably the failure to take feasible public precautions against the monsoons and the disarray of the judicial system. …The Statesman lamented in July 1980:`The simplest matter takes an inordinate amount of time, remedies seldom being available to those without means or influence. Of the more than 16,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court, about 5,000 were introduced more than five years ago; while nearly 16,000 of the backlog of more than 600,000 cases in our high courts have been hanging fire for over a decade. Allahabad is the worst offender but there are about 75,000 uncleared cases in the Calcutta High Court in addition to well over a million in West Bengal’s lower courts.” Such a state of affairs has been caused not only by lazy and corrupt policemen, court clerks and lawyers, but also by the paucity of judges and magistrates. . . . a vast volume of laws provokes endless litigation as much because of poor drafting which leads to disputes over interpretation as because they appear to violate particular rights and privileges…. When governments determinedly do what they need not or should not do, it may be expected that they will fail to do what civil government positively should be doing.” A few months ago was the 25th anniversary of this statement… !

Yes Prime Minister, having an effective and efficient judiciary is indeed a premier public good and one that has failed to be provided to India’s people from Nehru’s time and through Indira’s. I managed to persuade Rajiv about it completely. Might I next be so bold as to draw attention as well to the paragraphs of the 2007 article that followed?

“Similarly, Rajiv comprehended when it was said to him that the primary fiscal problem faced by India is the vast and uncontrolled public debt, interest payments on which suck dry all public budgets leaving no room for provision of public goods. Government accounts: Government has been routinely “rolling over” its domestic debt in the asset-portfolios of the nationalised banks while displaying and highlighting only its new additional borrowing in a year as the “Fiscal Deficit”. More than two dozen States have been doing the same and their liabilities ultimately accrue to the Union too. The stock of public debt in India is Rs 30 trillion (Rs 30 lakh crore) at least, and portends a hyperinflation in the future. There has been no serious recognition of this since it is political and bureaucratic actions that have been causing the problem. Proper recognition would entail systematically cleaning up the budgets and accounts of every single governmental entity in the country: the Union, every State, every district and municipality, every publicly funded entity or organisation, and at the same time improving public decision-making capacity so that once budgets and accounts recover from grave sickness over decades, functioning institutions exist for their proper future management. All this would also stop corruption in its tracks, and release resources for valuable public goods and services like the Judiciary, School Education and Basic Health. Institutions for improved political and administrative decision-making are needed throughout the country if public preferences with respect to raising and allocating common resources are to be elicited and then translated into actual delivery of public goods and services. Our dysfunctional legislatures will have to do at least a little of what they are supposed to. When public budgets and accounts are healthy and we have functioning public goods and services, macroeconomic conditions would have been created for the paper-rupee to once more become a money as good as gold ~ a convertible world currency for all of India’s people, not merely the metropolitan special interest groups that have been controlling our governments and their agendas.”

Subroto Roy

Kolkata

Q: What is common to swine flu, a weak monsoon, climate change, America’s financial crisis and Pakistani terrorism?

August 11, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

A: They are all external or exogenous factors that the Government of India’s leaders, spokesmen and other apologists adduce to explain away endogenous economic outcomes arising from bad fiscal and monetary policies, pork-barrel politics, lobbying by organised Big Business and Big Labour, political and bureaucratic corruption etc. (And the Parliamentary Opposition is hardly any better, probably worse…)

More to come…

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Posted in Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of Public Finance, Government of India, India's bureaucracy, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's nomenclatura, India's political lobbyists, India's political parties, India's Politics, India's pork-barrel politics. Leave a Comment »

Thoughts, words, deeds: My work 1973-2010

August 3, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Thoughts, words, deeds

My work 1973-2010

Subroto Roy

This is an incomplete bibliography of my writings, public lectures etc 1973-2010 including citations, reviews, comments. I have been mostly an academic economist who by choice or circumstance over 36 years has had to venture also into science, philosophy, public policy, law, jurisprudence, practical politics, history, international relations, military strategy, financial theory, accounting, management, journalism, literary criticism, psychology, psychoanalysis, theology, aesthetics, biography, children’s fables, etc. If anything unites the seemingly diverse work recorded below it is that I have tried to acquire a grasp of the nature of human reason and then apply this comprehension in practical contexts as simply and clearly as possible. Hence I have ended up following the path of Aristotle, as described in modern times (via Wittgenstein and John Wisdom) by Renford Bambrough. The 2004 public lecture in England, “Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom”, may explain and illustrate all this best. A friend has been kind enough to call me an Academician, which I probably am, though one who really needs his own Academy because the incompetence, greed and mendacity encountered too often in the modern professoriat is dispiriting.

1-289 refer mostly to writings and publications printed on paper; 290-382 refer to writings or items not printed on paper — as new media break space, cost and other constraints of traditional publishing, a little repetition and overlap has occurred too. Also in a few cases, e.g., Aldous Huxley’s essay on DH Lawrence, nothing has been done except discover and republish. Several databases have been created and released in the public interest, as have been some rare maps. There is also some biographical and autobiographical material. Several inconsequential errors remain in the text, which shall take time to be rectified as documents come to be rediscovered and collated.

1973

1. “Behavioural study of mus musculus”, Haileybury College, Supervised by J de C Ford-Robertson MA (Oxon). (Due to be published here 2010).

2. “Chemistry at Advanced & Special Level: Student Notes 1972-73” (Due to be published here 2010).

3. “Biology at Advanced & Special Level: Student Notes 1972-73”, (Due to be published here 2010).

4. “Physics at Advanced Level: Student Notes 1972-73”, (Due to be published here 2010).

5. “Revolution: theoria and praxis”, London, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

6. “Gandhi vs Marx”, London, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

1974

7. “Relevance of downward money-wage rigidity to the problem of maintaining full-employment in the classical and Keynesian models of income determination”, London School of Economics, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

8. “Testing aircraft fuels at Shell Finland”.

1975

9. “Oxford Street experiences: down and out in London town”.

10. “SE Region Bulk Distribution Survey”, Unilever, Basingstoke.

11. “Four London poems”, in JCM Paton (ed) New Writing (London, Great Portland Street: International Students House). (Due to be republished here 2010)

12. “On economic growth models and modellers”, London School of Economics, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).

1976

13. “World money: system or anarchy?”, lecture to Professor ACL Day’s seminar, London School of Economics, Economics Department, April. (Due to be published here 2010).

14. “A beginner’s guide to some recent developments in monetary theory”, lecture to Professor FH Hahn’s seminar, Cambridge University Economics Department, November 17 (Due to be published here 2010). See also “Announcement of My “Hahn Seminar”, published here June 14 2008.

1977

15. “Inflation and unemployment: a survey”, mimeo, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. (Due to be published here 2010).

16. “On short run theories of dual economies”, Cambridge University Economics Department “substantial piece of work” required of first year Research Students. Examiner: DMG Newbery, FBA. (Due to be published here 2010).

1978

17. “Pure theory of developing economies 1 and 2”, Delhi School of Economics mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

18. “Introduction to some market outcomes under uncertainty”, Delhi School of Economics mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

19. “On money and development”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo, September. (Due to be published here 2010)

20. “Notes on the Newbery-Stiglitz model of sharecropping”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo November. (Due to be published here 2010).

1979

21. “A theory of rights and economic justice”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).

22. “Monetary theory and economic development”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

23. “Foundations of the case against ‘development planning’”, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, mimeo, November. (Due to be published here 2010).

1979-1989

24. Correspondence with Renford Bambrough (1926-1999), philosopher of St John’s College, Cambridge (Due to be published here 2010).

1980

25. “Models before the monetarist storm”, New Statesman letters

26. “Disciplining rulers and experts”, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).

1981

27. “On liberty & economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”, Cambridge University doctoral thesis, supervisor FH Hahn, FBA; examiners CJ Bliss, FBA; TW Hutchison, FBA (Due to be published here 2010). 27a Response of FA Hayek on a partial draft February 18 1981. 27b Response of Peter Bauer, 1982. 27c Response of Theodore W Schultz, 1983. 27d. Response of Frank Hahn 1985.

1982

28. “Knowledge and freedom in economic theory Parts 1 and 2”, Centre for Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Working Papers.

29. “Economic Theory and Development Economics”. Lecture to American Economic Association, New York, Dec 1982. Panel: RM Solow, HB Chenery, T Weisskopf, P Streeten, G Rosen, S Roy. Published in 29a.

1983

29a “Economic Theory and Development Economics: A Comment”. World Development, 1983. [Citation: Stavros Thefanides "Metamorphosis of Development Economics", World Development 1988.]

30. “The Political Economy of Trade Policy (Comment on J. Michael Finger)”, Washington DC: Cato Journal, Winter 1983/84. See also 000 “Risk-aversion explains resistance to freer trade”, 2008.

1984

31. “Considerations on Utility, Benevolence and Taxation”, History of Political Economy, 1984. 31a Response of Professor Sir John Hicks May 1 1984.

[Citations: P. Hennipman, "A Tale of Two Schools", De Economist 1987, "A New Look at the Ordinalist Revolution", J. Econ. Lit. Mar 1988; P. Rappoport, "Reply to Professor Hennipman", J. Econ. Lit. Mar 1988; Eugene Smolensky et al "An Application of A Dynamic Cost-of-Living Index to the Evaluation of Changes in Social Welfare", J. Post-Keynesian Econ.IX.3. 1987.]

32. Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India, London: Institute of Economic Affairs, London 1984.

[Citations: Lead editorial of The Times of London May 29 1984, “India’s economy”, Times letters June 16 1984. John Toye "Political Economy & Analysis of Indian Development", Modern Asian Studies, 22, 1, 1988; John Toye, Dilemmas of Development; D. Wilson, "Privatization of Asia", The Banker Sep. 1984 etc]. See also 370 “Silver Jubilee of ‘Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India’” 2009.

33. Review of Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen & Bernard Williams (eds) Public Choice.

34. Review of Limits of Utilitarianism, HB Miller & WH Williams (eds.), Public Choice.

35. Deendayal lecture (one of four invited lecturers), Washington DC, May.

1987

36. (with one other) “Does the Theory of Logical Types Inform the Theory of Communication?”, Journal of Genetic Psychology., 148 (4), Dec. 1987 [Citation:

37. “Irrelevance of Foreign Aid”, India International Centre Quarterly, Winter 1987.

38. Review of Development Planning by Sukhamoy Chakravarty for Economic Affairs, London 1987.

1988

39. (with two others) “Introduction” to Lessons in Development: A Comparative Study of Asia and Latin America. San Francisco: Inst. of Economic Growth.

40. “A note on the welfare economics of regional cooperation”, lecture to Asia-Latin America conference, East West Center Honolulu, published 2009.

1989

41. Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry, London & New York: Routledge (International Library of Philosophy) 1989, paperback 1991. Internet edition 2007. [Reviews & Citations: Research in Economics, 1992; De Economist 1991 & 1992; Manch.Sch. Econ.Studs. 59, 1991; Ethics 101.88 Jul. 1991; Kyklos 43.4 1990; Soc. Science Q. 71.880. Dec.1990; Can. Phil. Rev. 1990; J. Econ. Hist. Sep. 1990; Econ. & Phil. Fall 1990; Econ. Affairs June-July 1990; TLS May 1990; Choice March 1990; J. App.Phil. 1994, M. Blaug: Methodology of Economics, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1992; Hist. Methods. 27.3, 1994; J. of Inst. & Theoretical Econ.,1994; Jahrbucker fur Nationaleconomie 1994, 573:574. Mark A Lutz in Economics for the Common Good, London: Routledge, 1999, et al]. See also 339 “Apropos Philosophy of Economics”, Comments of Sidney Hook, KJ Arrow, Milton Friedman, TW Schultz, SS Alexander, Max Black, Renford Bambrough, John Gray et al.

42. Foreword to Essays on the Political Economy by James M. Buchanan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1989.

43. “Modern Political Economy of India”, edited by Subroto Roy & William E James, Hawaii mimeo May 21 1989. This published for the first time a November 1955 memorandum to the Government of India by Milton Friedman. See also 43a, 53.

43a. Preface to “Milton Friedman’s extempore comments at the 1989 Hawaii conference: on India, Israel, Palestine, the USA, Debt and its uses, Erhardt abolishing exchange controls, Etc”, May 22 1989, published here for the first time October 31 2008.

44. Milton Friedman’s defence of my work in 1989.

45. Theodore W. Schultz’s defence of Philosophy of Economics

1990

46. “Letter to Judge Evelyn Lance: On A Case Study in Private International Law” (Due to be published here in 2010).

47-49. Selections from advisory work on economic policy etc for Rajiv Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of India, published in 47a-49a.

1991

41b Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry, Paperback edition.

50. “Conversations and correspondence with Rajiv Gandhi during the Gulf war, January 1991” (Due to be published here 2010).

47a. A Memo to Rajiv I: Stronger Secular Middle”, The Statesman, Jul 31 1991.

48a “A Memo to Rajiv II: Saving India’s Prestige”, The Statesman, Aug 1 1991.

49a “A Memo to Rajiv III: Salvation in Penny Capitalism”, The Statesman, Aug 2 1991 47b-49b “Three Memoranda to Rajiv Gandhi 1990-91”, 2007 republication here.

51. “Constitution for a Second Indian Republic”, The Saturday Statesman, April 20 1991. Republished here 2009.

52. “On the Art of Government: Experts, Party, Cabinet and Bureaucracy”, New Delhi mimeo March 25 1991, published here July 00 2009.

1992

53. Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s Edited and with an Introduction by Subroto Roy & William E. James New Delhi, London, Newbury Park: Sage: 1992. Citation: Milton and Rose Friedman Two Lucky People (Chicago 1998), pp. 268-269.

54. Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s Edited and with an Introduction by William E. James & Subroto Roy, Hawaii MS 1989, Sage: 1992, Karachi: Oxford 1993.

Reviews of 53 & 54 include: Bus. Today, Mar-Apr 1992; Political Studies March 1995; Econ Times 21 March 1993; Pakistan Development Review 1992. Hindustan Times 11 July 1992. Pacific Affairs 1993; Hindu 21 March 1993, 15 June 1993; Pakistan News International 12 June 1993. Book Reviews March 1993; Deccan Herald 2 May 1993; Pol.Econ.J. Ind. 1992. Fin Express 13 September 1992; Statesman 16 Jan. 1993. J. Royal Soc Asian Aff. 1994, J. Contemporary Asia, 1994 etc.

55. “Fundamental Problems of the Economies of India and Pakistan”, World Bank, Washington, mimeo (Due to be published here 2010).

56.“The Road to Stagflation: The Coming Dirigisme in America, or, America, beware thy economists!, or Zen and Clintonomics,” Washington DC, Broad Branch Terrace, mimeo, November 17.

1993

57. “Exchange-rates and manufactured exports of South Asia”, IMF Washington DC mimeo. Published in part in 2007-2008 as 58-62:

58. “Path of the Indian Rupee 1947-1993”, 2008.

59. “Path of the Pakistan Rupee 1947-1993”, 2008.

60. “Path of the Sri Lankan Rupee 1948-1993”, 2008.

61. “Path of the Bangladesh Taka 1972-1993”, 2008.

62. “India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh Manufactured Exports, IMF Washington DC mimeo”, published 2007.

63. “Economic Assessment of US-India Merchandise Trade”, Arlington, Virginia, mimeo, published in slight part in Indo-US Trade & Economic Cooperation, ICRIER New Delhi, 1995, and in whole 2007.

64. “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir”, mimeo, Arlington, Virginia, circulated in Washington DC 1993-1995, cf 82, 111 infra. Comment of Selig Harrison.

1994

65. “Comment on Indonesia”, in The Political Economy of Policy Reform edited by John Williamson, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.

66a “Gold reserves & the gold price in anticipation of Central Bank behaviour”, Greenwich, Connecticut, mimeo. 67b. “Portfolio optimization and foreign currency exposure hedging” Greenwich, Connecticut mimeo.

1995

68. “On the logic and commonsense of debt and payments crises: How to avoid another Mexico in India and Pakistan”, Scarsdale, NY, mimeo, May 1.

69. “Policies for Young India”, Scarsdale, NY, pp. 350, manuscript.

1996

70. US Supreme Court documents, published in part in 2008 as “Become a US Supreme Court Justice!” 70a, 70b (Due to be published in full here in 2010 as Roy vs University of Hawaii, 1989- including the expert testimonies of Milton Friedman and Theodore W Schultz.).

71. “Key problems of macroeconomic management facing the new Indian Government”, May 17. Scarsdale, New York, mimeo. (Due to be published here 2010).

72. “Preventing a collapse of the rupee”, IIT Kharagpur lecture July 16 1996.

73. “The Economist’s Representation of Technological Knowledge”, Vishleshlaya lecture to the Institution of Engineers, September 15 1996, IIT Kharagpur.

1997

74. “Union and State Budgets in India”, lecture at the World Bank, Washington DC, May 00.

75. “State Budgets in India”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo, June 6.

1998

76. “Transparency and Economic Policy-Making: An address to the Asia-Pacific Public Relations Conference” (panel on Transparency chaired by CR Irani) Jan 30 1998, published here 2008.

77. Theodore W. Schultz 1902-1998, Feb 25.

78. “The Economic View of Human Resources”, address to a regional conference on human resources, IIT Kharagpur.

79. “Management accounting”, lecture at Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussourie,

80a “The Original Reformer”, Outlook letters, Jan 23 1998

81. “Recent Developments in Modern Finance”, IIM Bangalore Review, 10, 1 & 2, Jan.-Jun 1998. Reprinted as “From the Management Guru’s Classroom”: 81a “An introduction to derivatives”, Business Standard/Financial Times, Bombay 18 Apr 1999; 81b “Options in the future, Apr 25 1999; 81c “What is hedging?”, May 2 1999; 81d “Teaching computers to think”, May 9 1999.

82. “Towards an Economic Solution for Kashmir”, Jun 22 1998, lecture at Heritage Foundation, Washington DC. Cf 111 Dec 2005.

83. “Sixteen Currencies for India: A Reverse Euro Model for Monetary & Fiscal Efficacy”, Lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, June 29 1998. Due to be published here 2010.

84. “Fable of the Fox, the Farmer, and the Would-Be Tailors”, October (Published here July 27 2009).

85. “A Common Man’s Guide to Pricing Financial Derivatives”, Lecture to “National Seminar on Derivatives”, Xavier Labour Research Institute, Jamshedpur, Dec. 16 1998. See 98.

1999

86. “An Analysis of Pakistan’s War-Winning Strategy: Are We Ready for This?”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo, published in part as 86a.“Was a Pakistani Grand Strategy Discerned in Time by India?” New Delhi: Security & Political Risk Analysis Bulletin, July 1999, Kargil issue. See also 000

80b. “The Original Reformer”, Outlook letters, Sep 13 1999.

2000

87. “On Freedom & the Scientific Point of View”, SN Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Feb 17 2000. Cf 100 below.

88. “Liberalism and Indian economic policy”, lecture at IIM Calcutta, Indian Liberal Group Meetings Devlali, Hyderabad; also Keynote address to UGC Seminar Guntur, March 30 2002. (Due to be published here 2010).

89. “Towards a Highly Transparent Fiscal & Monetary Framework for India’s Union & State Governments”, Invited address to Conference of State Finance Secretaries, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, April 29, 2000. Published 2008.

90. “On the Economics of Information Technology”, two lectures at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, Nov 10-11, 2000.

91. Review of A New World by Amit Chaudhuri in Literary Criterion, Mysore.

2001

92. Review of AD Shroff: Titan of Finance and Free Enterprise by Sucheta Dalal, Freedom First., January.

93. “Encounter with Rajiv Gandhi: On the Origins of the 1991 Economic Reform”, Freedom First, October. See also 93a in 2005 and 93b in 2007.

94. “A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11”, a keynote address to the Council for Asian Liberals & Democrats, Manila, Philippines, 16 Nov. 2001. Published as 91a.

95. “The Case for and against The Satanic Verses: Diatribe and Dialectic as Art”, Dec 22 republished in print 95a The Statesman Festival Volume, 2006.

2002

94a “A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11”, in September 11 & Political Freedom in Asia, eds. Johannen, Smith & Gomez, Singapore 2002.

2002-2010

96. “Recording vivid dreams: Freud’s advice in exploring the Unconscious Mind” (Due to be published here in 2010).

2003

97. “Key principles of government accounting and audit”, IIT Kharagpur mimeo.

98. “Derivative pricing & other topics in financial theory: a student’s complete lecture notes” (Due to be published here in 2010).

2004

99. “Collapse of the Global Conversation”, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands, Jul 2004.

100. “Science, Religion, Art & the Necessity of Freedom”, a public lecture, University of Buckingham, UK, August 24 2004. Published here 2007.

2005

93a Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform (this was the full story; it appeared in print for the first time in The Statesman Festival Volume 2007).

101. “Can India become an economic superpower (or will there be a monetary meltdown)?” Cardiff University Institute of Applied Macroeconomics Monetary Economics Seminar, April 13, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, April 27, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, Chief Economist’s Seminar on Monetary Economics, May 5.

102. Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant, Edited and with an Introduction by Subroto Roy & John Clarke, London & New York: Continuum, 2005; paperback 2006; French translation by Florian Bay, 2007.

103. “Iqbal & Jinnah vs Rahmat Ali in Pakistan’s Creation”, Dawn, Karachi, Sep 3.

104. “The Mitrokhin Archives II from an Indian Perspective: A Review Article”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 11 .

105. “After the Verdict”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 20.

106. “US Espionage Failures”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 26

107. “Waffle But No Models of Monetary Policy”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Oct 30.

108. “On Hindus and Muslims”, The Statesman, Perspective Page, Nov 6.

109. “Assessing Vajpayee: Hindutva True and False”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Nov 13-14″.

110. “Fiction from the India Economic Summit”, The Statesman, Front Page, Nov 29.

111. “Solving Kashmir: On an Application of Reason”, The Statesman Editorial Page

I. “Give the Hurriyat et al Indian Green Cards”, Dec 1

II. “Choice of Nationality under Full Information”, Dec 2

III. “Of Flags and Consulates in Gilgit etc”, Dec 3.

2006

112. “The Dream Team: A Critique”, The Statesman Editorial Page

I : New Delhi’s Consensus (Manmohantekidambaromics), Jan 6

II: Money, Convertibility, Inflationary Deficit Financing, Jan 7

III: Rule of Law, Transparency, Government Accounting, Jan 8.

113. “Unaccountable Delhi: India’s Separation of Powers’ Doctrine”, The Statesman, Jan 13.

114. “Communists and Constitutions”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 22.

115. “Diplomatic Wisdom”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 31.

116. “Mendacity & the Government Budget Constraint”, The Statesman, Front Page Feb 3.

117. “Of Graven Images”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb5.

118. “Separation of Powers, Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Pages Feb 12-13.

119. “Public Debt, Government Fantasy”, The Statesman, Front Page Editorial Comment, Feb 22.

120. “War or Peace Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 23-24.

121. “Can You Handle This Brief, Mr Chidambaram?” The Statesman, Front Page Feb 26.

122. “A Downpayment On the Taj Mahal Anyone?”, The Statesman, Front Page Comment on the Budget 2006-2007, Mar 1.

123. “Atoms for Peace (or War)”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Mar 5.

124. “Imperialism Redux: Business, Energy, Weapons & Foreign Policy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Mar 14.

125. “Logic of Democracy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Mar 30.

126. “Towards an Energy Policy”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 2.

127. “Iran’s Nationalism”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 6.

128. “A Modern Military”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 16.

129. “On Money & Banking”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Apr 23.

130. “Lessons for India from Nepal’s Revolution”, The Statesman, Front Page Apr 26.

131. “Revisionist Flattery (Inder Malhotra’s Indira Gandhi: A Review Article)”, The Sunday Statesman, May 7.

132. “Modern World History”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, May 7.

133. “Argumentative Indians: A Conversation with Professor Amartya Sen on Philosophy, Identity and Islam,” The Sunday Statesman, May 14 2006. “A Philosophical Conversation between Professor Sen and Dr Roy”, 2008. Translated into Bengali by AA and published in 00.

134. “The Politics of Dr Singh”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, May 21.

135. “Corporate Governance & the Principal-Agent Problem”, lecture at a conference on corporate governance, Kolkata May 31. Published here 2008.

136. “Pakistan’s Allies Parts 1-2″, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jun 4-5.

137. “Law, Justice and J&K Parts 1-2″, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 2, The Statesman Editorial Page Jul 3.

138. “The Greatest Pashtun (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan)”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 16.

139. “Understanding Pakistan Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Jul 30, The Statesman Editorial Page Jul 31.

140. “Indian Money and Credit”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 6.

141. “India’s Moon Mission”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 13.

142. “Jaswant’s Journeyings: A Review Article”, The Sunday Statesman Magazine, Aug 27.

143. “Our Energy Interests, Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 27, The Statesman Editorial Page Aug 28.

144. “Is Balochistan Doomed?”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Sep 3 2006.

145. “Racism New and Old”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Sep 8 2006

146. “Political Economy of India’s Energy Policy”, address to KAF-TERI conference, Goa Oct 7, published in 146a.

147. “New Foreign Policy? Seven phases of Indian foreign policy may be identifiable since Nehru”, Parts 1-2, The Sunday Statesman, Oct 8, The Statesman Oct 9.

148. “Justice & Afzal: There is a difference between law and equity (or natural justice). The power of pardon is an equitable power. Commuting a death-sentence is a partial pardon”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Oct 14

149. “Non-existent liberals (On a Liberal Party for India)”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Oct 22.

150. “History of Jammu & Kashmir Parts 1-2”, The Sunday Statesman, Oct 29, The Statesman Oct 30, Editorial Page.

151. “American Democracy: Does America need a Prime Minister and a longer-lived Legislature?”, The Sunday Statesman Nov 5.

152. “Milton Friedman A Man of Reason 1912-2006”, The Statesman Perspective Page, Nov 22.

153. “Postscript to Milton Friedman Mahalanobis’s Plan (The Mahalanobis-Nehru “Second Plan”) The Statesman Front Page Nov 22.

154. “Mob Violence and Psychology”, Dec 10, The Statesman, Editorial Page.

155. “What To Tell Musharraf: Peace Is Impossible Without Non-Aggressive Pakistani Intentions”, The Statesman Editorial Page Dec 15.

156. “Land, Liberty and Value: Government must act in good faith treating all citizens equally – not favouring organised business lobbies and organised labour over an unorganised peasantry”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page Dec 31.

2007

157. “Hypocrisy of the CPI-M: Political Collapse In Bengal: A Mid-Term Election/Referendum Is Necessary”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Jan 9.

158. “On Land-Grabbing: Dr Singh’s India, Buddhadeb’s Bengal, Modi’s Gujarat have notorious US, Soviet and Chinese examples to follow ~ distracting from the country’s real economic problems,” The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page Jan 14.

159. “India’s Macroeconomics: Real growth has steadily occurred because India has shared the world’s technological progress. But bad fiscal, monetary policies over decades have led to monetary weakness and capital flight” The Statesman Editorial Page Jan 20.

160. “Fiscal Instability: Interest payments quickly suck dry every year’s Budget. And rolling over old public debt means that Government Borrowing in fact much exceeds the Fiscal Deficit”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 4.

161. “Our trade and payments Parts 1-2” (“India in World Trade and Payments”),The Sunday Statesman, Feb 11 2007, The Statesman, Feb 12 2007.

162. “Our Policy Process: Self-Styled “Planners” Have Controlled India’s Paper Money For Decades,” The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 20.

163. “Bengal’s Finances”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, Feb 25.

164. “Fallacious Finance: Congress, BJP, CPI-M may be leading India to Hyperinflation” The Statesman Editorial Page Mar 5.

165. “Uttar Pradesh Polity and Finance: A Responsible New Govt May Want To Declare A Financial Emergency” The Statesman Editorial Page, Mar 24

166. “A scam in the making” in The Sunday Statesman Front Page Apr 1 2007, published here in full as “Swindling India”.

167. “Maharashtra’s Money: Those Who Are Part Of The Problem Are Unlikely To Be A Part Of Its Solution”, The Statesman Editorial Page Apr 24.

146a. “Political Economy of Energy Policy” in India and Energy Security edited by Anant Sudarshan and Ligia Noronha, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, New Delhi 2007.

168. “Presidential Qualities: Simplicity, Genuine Achievement Are Desirable; Political Ambition Is Not”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, May 8.

169. “We & Our Neighbours: Pakistanis And Bangladeshis Would Do Well To Learn From Sheikh Abdullah”, The Statesman, Editorial Page May 15.

170. “On Indian Nationhood: From Tamils To Kashmiris And Assamese And Mizos To Sikhs And Goans”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, May 25.

171. A Current Example of the Working of the Unconscious Mind, May 26.

172. Where I would have gone if I was Osama Bin Laden, May 31.

173. “US election ’08:America’s Presidential Campaign Seems Destined To Be Focussed On Iraq”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 1.

174. “Home Team Advantage: On US-Iran talks and Sunni-Shia subtleties: Tehran must transcend its revolution and endorse the principle that the House of Islam has many mansions”, The Sunday Statesman Editorial Page, June 3

175. “Unhealthy Delhi: When will normal political philosophy replace personality cults?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 11.

176. “American Turmoil: A Vice-Presidential Coup – And Now a Grassroots Counterrevolution?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, June 18

177. “Political Paralysis: India has yet to develop normal conservative, liberal and socialist parties. The Nice-Housing-Effect and a little game-theory may explain the current stagnation”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, June 24.

177. “Has America Lost? War Doctrines Of Kutusov vs Clausewitz May Help Explain Iraq War”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 3.

178. “Lal Masjid ≠ Golden Temple: Wide differences are revealed between contemporary Pakistan and India by these two superficially similar military assaults on armed religious civilians”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page July 15

179 “Political Stonewalling: Only Transparency Can Improve Institutions”, The Statesman, Editorial Page July 20.

180. “Gold standard etc: Fixed versus flexible exchange rates”, July 21.

181. “US Pakistan-India Policy: Delhi & Islamabad Still Look West In Defining Their Relationship”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 27.

182. “Works of DH Lawrence” July 30

183. “An Open Letter to Professor Amartya Sen about Singur etc”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, July 31.

184. “Martin Buber on Palestine and Israel (with Postscript)”, Aug 4.

185. “Auguste Rodin on Nature, Art, Beauty, Women and Love”, Aug 7.

186. “Saving Pakistan: A Physicist/Political Philosopher May Represent Iqbal’s “Spirit of Modern Times”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 13.

187. Letter to Forbes.com 16 Aug.

188. “Need for Clarity: A poorly drafted treaty driven by business motives is a recipe for international misunderstanding”, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Aug 19.

189. “No Marxist MBAs? An amicus curiae brief for the Hon’ble High Court”, The Statesman, FrontPage, Aug 29.

190. On Lawrence, Sep 4.

191. Dalai Lama’s Return: In the tradition of Gandhi, King, Mandela, Sep 11.

192. Of JC Bose, Patrick Geddes & the Leaf-World, Sep 12.

193. “Against Quackery: Manmohan and Sonia have violated Rajiv Gandhi’s intended reforms; the Communists have been appeased or bought; the BJP is incompetent Parts 1-2”, in The Sunday Statesman and The Statesman, Editorial Pages of Sep 23-24.

194. Karl Georg Zinn’s 1994 Review of Philosophy of Economics, Sep 26.

195. DH Lawrence’s Phoenix, Oct 3.

93b. “Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform”, Statesman Festival Volume.

196. “Iran, America, Iraq: Bush’s post-Saddam Saddamism — one flip-flop too many?”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 16.

197. “Understanding China: The World Needs to Ask China to Find Her True Higher Self”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 22.

198. “India-USA interests: Elements of a serious Indian foreign policy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Oct 30.

199. “China’s India Aggression : German Historians Discover Logic Behind Communist Military Strategy”, The Statesman, Editorial Page Special Article, Nov 5.

200. Sonia’s Lying Courtier (with Postscript), Nov 25.

201. “Surrender or Fight? War is not a cricket match or Bollywood movie. Can India fight China if it must?” The Statesman, Dec 4, Editorial Page.

202. Hutton and Desai: United in Error Dec 14

203. “China’s Commonwealth: Freedom is the Road to Resolving Taiwan, Tibet, Sinkiang”, The Statesman, Dec 17.

2008

204. “Nixon & Mao vs India: How American foreign policy did a U-turn about Communist China’s India aggression. The Government of India should publish its official history of the 1962 war.” The Sunday Statesman, Jan 6, The Statesman Jan 7 Editorial Page.

205. “Lessons from the 1962 War: Beginnings of a solution to the long-standing border problem: there are distinct Tibetan, Chinese and Indian points of view that need to be mutually comprehended”, The Sunday Statesman, January 13 2008.

206. “Our Dismal Politics: Will Independent India Survive Until 2047?”, The Statesman Editorial Page, Feb 1.

207. Median Voter Model of India’s Electorate Feb 7.

208. “Anarchy in Bengal: Intra-Left bandh marks the final unravelling of “Brand Buddha””, The Sunday Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 10.

209. Fifty years since my third birthday: on life and death.

210. “Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession: Sheikh Abdullah Relied In Politics On The French Constitution, Not Islam”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 16.

211. A Note on the Indian Policy Process Feb 21.

212. “Growth & Government Delusion: Progress Comes From Learning, Enterprise, Exchange, Not The Parasitic State”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 22.

213. “How to Budget: Thrift, Not Theft, Needs to Guide Our Public Finances”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, Feb 26.

214. “India’s Budget Process (in Theory)”, The Statesman, Front Page Feb 29.

215. “Irresponsible Governance: Congress, BJP, Communists, BSP, Sena Etc Reveal Equally Bad Traits”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 4.

216. “American Politics: Contest Between Obama And Clinton Affects The World”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 11.

217. “China’s India Example: Tibet, Xinjiang May Not Be Assimilated Like Inner Mongolia And Manchuria”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, March 25.

218. “Taxation of India’s Professional Cricket: A Proposal”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 1.

219. “Two cheers for Pakistan!”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 7.

220. “Indian Inflation: Upside Down Economics From The New Delhi Establishment Parts 1-2”, The Statesman, Editorial Page, April 15-16.

221. “Assessing Manmohan: The Doctor of Deficit Finance should realise the currency is at stake”, The Statesman, Editorial Page Apr 25.

222. John Wisdom, Renford Bambrough: Main Philosophical Works, May 8.

223. “All India wept”: On the death of Rajiv Gandhi, May 21.

224. “China’s force and diplomacy: The need for realism in India” The Statesman, Editorial Page May 31.

226. Serendipity and the China-Tibet-India border problem June 6

227. “Leadership vacuum: Time & Tide Wait For No One In Politics: India Trails Pakistan & Nepal!”, The Statesman Editorial Page June 7.

228. My meeting Jawaharlal Nehru Oct13 1962

229. Manindranath Roy 1891-1958

230. Surendranath Roy 1860-1929

231. The Roys of Behala 1928.

232. Sarat Chandra visits Surendranath Roy 1927

233. Nuksaan-Faida Analysis = Cost-Benefit Analysis in Hindi/Urdu Jun 30

234. One of many reasons John R Hicks was a great economist July 3

236. My father, Indian diplomat, in the Shah’s Tehran 1954-57 July 8

237 Distribution of Govt of India Expenditure (Net of Operational Income) 1995 July 27

238. Growth of Real Income, Money & Prices in India 1869-2008, July 28.

239. Communism from Social Democracy? But not in India or China! July 29

240. Death of Solzhenitsyn, Aug. 3

240a. Tolstoy on Science and Art, Aug 4.

241. “Reddy`s reckoning: Where should India’s real interest rate be relative to the world?” Business Standard Aug 10

242. “Rangarajan Effect”, Business Standard Aug 24

243. My grandfather’s death in Ottawa 50 years ago today Sep 3

244. My books in the Library of Congress and British Library Sep 12

245. On Jimmy Carter & the “India-US Nuclear Deal”, Sep 12

246. My father after presenting his credentials to President Kekkonen of Finland Sep 14 1973.

247. “October 1929? Not!”, Business Standard, Sep 18.

248. “MK Gandhi, SN Roy, MA Jinnah in March 1919: Primary education legislation in a time of protest”

249. 122 sensible American economists Sept 26

250. Govt of India: Please call in the BBC and ask them a question Sep 27

251. “Monetary Integrity and the Rupee: Three British Raj relics have dominated our macroeconomic policy-making” Business Standard Sep 28.

252a. Rabindranath’s daughter writes to her friend my grandmother Oct 5

252b. A Literary Find: Modern Poetry in Bengal, Oct 6.

253. Sarat writes to Manindranath 1931, Oct 12

254. Origins of India’s Constitutional Politics 1913

255. Indira Gandhi in Paris, 1971

256. How the Liabilities/Assets Ratio of Indian Banks Changed from 84% in 1970 to 108% in 1998, October 20

257a. My Subjective Probabilities on India’s Moon Mission Oct 21

258. Complete History of Mankind’s Moon Missions: An Indian Citizen’s Letter to ISRO’s Chairman, Oct 22.

259. Would not a few million new immigrants solve America’s mortgage crisis? Oct 26

260. “America’s divided economists”, Business Standard Oct 26

261. One tiny prediction about the Obama Administration, Nov 5

262. Rai Bahadur Umbika Churn Rai, 1827-1902, Nov 7 2008

263. Jawaharlal Nehru invites my father to the Mountbatten Farewell Nov 7 2008

70a. “Become a US Supreme Court Justice! (Explorations in the Rule of Law in America) Preface” Nov 9

70b. “Become a US Supreme Court Justice! (Explorations in the Rule of Law in America) Password protected.” Nov 9.

257b. Neglecting technological progress was the basis of my pessimism about Chandrayaan, Nov 9.

264. Of a new New Delhi myth and the success of the University of Hawaii 1986-1992 Pakistan project Nov 15

265. Pre-Partition Indian Secularism Case-Study: Fuzlul Huq and Manindranath Roy Nov 16

266. Do President-elect Obama’s Pakistan specialists suppose Maulana Azad, Dr Zakir Hussain, Sheikh Abdullah were Pakistanis (or that Sheikh Mujib wanted to remain one)? Nov 18

267. Jews have never been killed in India for being Jews until this sad day, Nov 28.

268. In international law, Pakistan has been the perpetrator, India the victim of aggression in Mumbai, Nov 30.

269. The Indian Revolution, Dec 1.

270. Habeas Corpus: a captured terrorist mass-murderer tells a magistrate he has not been mistreated by Mumbai’s police Dec 3

271. India’s Muslim Voices (Or, Let us be clear the Pakistan-India or Kashmir conflicts have not been Muslim-Hindu conflicts so much as intra-Muslim conflicts about Muslim identity and self-knowledge on the Indian subcontinent), Dec 4

272. “Anger Management” needed? An Oxford DPhil recommends Pakistan launch a nuclear first strike against India within minutes of war, Dec 5.

273. A Quick Comparison Between the September 11 2001 NYC-Washington attacks and the November 26-28 2008 Mumbai Massacres (An Application of the Case-by-Case Philosophical Technique of Wittgenstein, Wisdom and Bambrough), Dec 6

274. Dr Rice finally gets it right (and maybe Mrs Clinton will too) Dec 7

275. Will the Government of India’s new macroeconomic policy dampen or worsen the business-cycle (if such a cycle exists at all)? No one knows! “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.” Dec 7

276. Pump-priming for car-dealers: Keynes groans in his grave (If evidence was needed of the intellectual dishonesty of New Delhi’s new macroeconomic policy, here it is) Dec 9.

277. Congratulations to Mumbai’s Police: capturing a terrorist, affording him his Habeas Corpus rights, getting him to confess within the Rule of Law, sets a new world standard Dec 10

278. Two cheers — wait, let’s make that one cheer — for America’s Justice Department, Dec 10

279. Will Pakistan accept the bodies of nine dead terrorists who came from Pakistan to Mumbai? If so, let there be a hand-over at the Wagah border, Dec 11.

280. Kasab was a stupid, ignorant, misguided youth, manufactured by Pakistan’s terrorist masterminds into becoming a mass-murdering robot: Mahatma Gandhi’s India should punish him, get him to repent if he wishes, then perhaps rehabilitate him as a potent weapon against Pakistani terrorism Dec 12.

281. Pakistan’s New Delhi Embassy should ask for “Consular Access” to nine dead terrorists in a Mumbai morgue before asking to meet Kasab, Dec 13

282. An Indian Reply to President Zardari: Rewarding Pakistan for bad behaviour leads to schizophrenic relationships Dec 19

283. Is my prediction about Caroline Kennedy becoming US Ambassador to Britain going to be correct? Dec 27

284. Chandrayaan adds a little good cheer! Well done, ISRO!, Dec 28

285. How sad that “Slumdog millionaire” is SO disappointing! Dec 31

289. (with Claude Arpi) “Transparency & history: India’s archives must be opened to world standards” Business Standard New Delhi Dec 31, 2008, published here Jan 1 .

2009

290. A basis of India-Pakistan cooperation on the Mumbai massacres: the ten Pakistani terrorists started off as pirates and the Al-Huseini is a pirate ship Jan 1.

291. India’s “pork-barrel politics” needs a nice (vegetarian) Hindi name! “Teli/oily politics” perhaps? (And are we next going to see a Bill of Rights for Lobbyists?) Jan 3

292. My (armchair) experience of the 1999 Kargil war (Or, “Actionable Intelligence” in the Internet age: How the Kargil effort got a little help from a desktop) Jan 5

293. How Jammu & Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah can become a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize: An Open Letter, Jan 7

294. Could the Satyam/PwC fraud be the visible part of an iceberg? Where are India’s “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”? Isn’t governance rather poor all over corporate India? Bad public finance may be a root cause Jan 8

295. Satyam does not exist: it is bankrupt, broke, kaput. Which part of this does the new “management team” not get? The assets belong to Satyam’s creditors. Jan 8

296. Jews are massacred in Mumbai and now Jews commit a massacre in Gaza! Jan 9

297. And now for the Great Satyam Whitewash/Cover-Up/Public Subsidy! The wrong Minister appoints the wrong new Board who, probably, will choose the wrong policy Jan 12

298. Letter to Wei Jingsheng Jan 14

299. Memo to the Hon’ble Attorneys General of Pakistan & India: How to jointly prosecute the Mumbai massacre perpetrators most expeditiously Jan 16

300. Satyam and IT-firms in general may be good candidates to become “Labour-Managed” firms Jan 18

301. “Yes we might be able to do that. Perhaps we ought to. But again, perhaps we ought not to, let me think about it…. Most important is Cromwell’s advice: Think it possible we may be mistaken!” Jan 20.

302. RAND’s study of the Mumbai attacks Jan 25

303. Didn’t Dr Obama (the new American President’s late father) once publish an article in Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics? (Or did he?) Jan 25.

304. “A Dialogue in Macroeconomics” 1989 etc: sundry thoughts on US economic policy discourse Jan 30

305. American Voices: A Brief Popular History of the United States in 20 You-Tube Music Videos Feb 5

306. Jaladhar Sen writes to Manindranath at Surendranath’s death, Feb 23

307. Pakistani expansionism: India and the world need to beware of “Non-Resident Pakistanis” ruled by Rahmat Ali’s ghost, Feb 9

308. My American years Part One 1980-90: battles for academic integrity & freedom Feb 11.

309. Thanks and well done Minister Rehman Malik and the Govt of Pakistan Feb 12

310. Can President Obama resist the financial zombies (let alone slay them)? His economists need to consult Dr Anna J Schwartz Feb 14

311. A Brief History of Gilgit, Feb 18

312. Memo to UCLA Geographers: Commonsense suggests Mr Bin Laden is far away from the subcontinent Feb 20

313. The BBC gets its history and geography deliberately wrong again Feb 21

314. Bengal Legislative Council 1921, Feb 28

315. Carmichael visits Surendranath, 1916, Mar 1

316. Memo to GoI CLB: India discovered the Zero, and 51% of Zero is still Zero Mar 10

317. An Academic Database of Doctoral & Other Postgraduate Research Done at UK Universities on India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Other Asian Countries Over 100 Years, Mar 13

318. Pakistan’s progress, Mar 18

319. Risk-aversion explains resistance to free trade, Mar 19

320. India’s incredibly volatile inflation rate! Mar 20

321. Is “Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona” referring to an emasculation of (elite) American society?, Mar 21

322. Just how much intellectual fraud can Delhi produce? Mar 26

323. India is not a monarchy! We urgently need to universalize the French concept of “citoyen”! Mar 28

324. Could this be the real state of some of our higher education institutions? Mar 29

325. Progress! The BBC retracts its prevarication! Mar 30

326. Aldous Huxley’s Essay “DH Lawrence” Mar 31

327. Waffle not institutional reform is what (I predict) the “G-20 summit” will produce, April 1

328. Did a full cricket team of Indian bureaucrats follow our PM into 10 Downing Street? Count for yourself! April 3

329. Will someone please teach the BJP’s gerontocracy some Economics 101 on an emergency basis? April 5

330. The BBC needs to determine exactly where it thinks Pakistan is!, April 5

331. Alfred Lyall on Christians, Muslims, India, China, Etc, 1908, April 6

332. An eminent economist of India passes away April 9

333. Democracy Database for the Largest Electorate Ever Seen in World History, April 12

334. Memo to the Election Commission of India April 14 2009, 9 AM, April 14

335. Caveat emptor! Satyam is taken over, April 14

336. India’s 2009 General Elections: Candidates, Parties, Symbols for Polls on 16-30 April Phases 1,2,3, April 15

337. On the general theory of expertise in democracy: reflections on what emerges from the American “torture memos” today, April 18

338. India’s 2009 General Elections: 467 constituencies (out of 543) for which candidates have been announced as of 1700hrs April 21, April 21

339. Apropos Philosophy of Economics, Comments of Sidney Hook, KJ Arrow, Milton Friedman, TW Schultz, SS Alexander, Max Black, Renford Bambrough, John Gray et al., April 22.

340. India’s 2009 General Elections: Names of all 543 Constituencies of the 15th Lok Sabha, April 22.

341. India’s 2009 General Elections: How 4125 State Assembly Constituencies comprise the 543 new Lok Sabha Constituencies, April 23.

342. Why has America’s “torture debate” yet to mention the obvious? Viz., sadism and racism, April 24

343. India’s 2009 General Elections: the advice of the late “George Eliot” (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) to India’s voting public, April 24.

344. India’s 2009 General Elections: Delimitation and the Different Lists of 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies in 2009 and 2004, April 25

345. Is “Slumdog Millionaire” the single worst Best Picture ever?

346. India’s 2009 General Elections: Result of Delimitation — Old (2004) and New (2009) Lok Sabha and Assembly Constituencies, April 26

347. India’s 2009 General Elections: 7019 Candidates in 485 (out of 543) Constituencies announced as of April 26 noon April 26

348. What is Christine Fair referring to? Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap? April 27

349. Politics can be so entertaining Manmohan versus Sonia on the poor old CPI(M)!, April 28

350. A Dozen Grown-Up Questions for Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, LK Advani, Sharad Pawar, Km Mayawati and Anyone Else Dreaming of Becoming/Deciding India’s PM After the 2009 General Elections, April 28

351. India’s 2009 General Elections: How drastically will the vote-share of political parties change from 2004? May 2

352. India’s 2009 General Elections: And now finally, all 8,070 Candidates across all 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies, May 5

353. India’s 2009 General Elections: The Mapping of Votes into Assembly Segments Won into Parliamentary Seats Won in the 2004 Election, May 7

354. Will Messrs Advani, Rajnath Singh & Modi ride into the sunset if the BJP comes to be trounced? (Corrected), May 10

355. India’s 2009 General Elections: 543 Matrices to Help Ordinary Citizens Audit the Election Commission’s Vote-Tallies May 12

356. Well done Sonia-Rahul! Two hours before polls close today, I am willing to predict a big victory for you (but, please, try to get your economics right, and also, you must get Dr Singh a Lok Sabha seat if he is to be PM) May 13

357. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee must dissolve the West Bengal Assembly if he is an honest democrat: Please try to follow Gerard Schröder’s example even slightly! May 16

358. India’s 2009 General Elections: Provisional Results from the EC as of 1400 hours Indian Standard Time May 16

359. Memo to the Hon’ble President of India: It is Sonia Gandhi, not Manmohan Singh, who should be invited to our equivalent of the “Kissing Hands” Ceremony May 16

360. Time for heads to roll in the BJP/RSS and CPI(M)!, May 17.

361. Inviting a new Prime Minister of India to form a Government: Procedure Right and Wrong May 18

362. Starting with Procedural Error: Why has the “Cabinet” of the 14th Lok Sabha been meeting today AFTER the results of the Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha have been declared?! May 18

363. Why has the Sonia Congress done something that the Congress under Nehru-Indira-Rajiv would not have done, namely, exaggerate the power of the Rajya Sabha and diminish the power of the Lok Sabha? May 21

364. Shouldn’t Dr Singh’s Cabinet begin with a small apology to the President of India for discourtesy? May we have reviews and reforms of protocols and practices to be followed at Rashtrapati Bhavan and elsewhere? May 23

365. Parliament’s sovereignty has been diminished by the Executive: A record for future generations to know May 25

366. How tightly will organised Big Business be able to control economic policies this time? May 26

367. Why does India not have a Parliament ten days after the 15th Lok Sabha was elected? Nehru and Rajiv would both have been appalled May 27

368. Eleven days and counting after the 15th Lok Sabha was elected and still no Parliament of India! (But we do have 79 Ministers — might that be a world record?) May 28

369. Note to Posterity: 79 Ministers in office but no 15th Lok Sabha until June 1 2009! May 29

370. Silver Jubilee of Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India May 29

371. How to Design a Better Cabinet for the Government of India May 29

372. Parliament is supposed to control the Government, not be bullied or intimidated by it: Will Rahul Gandhi be able to lead the Backbenches in the 15th Lok Sabha? June 1

373. Mistaken Macroeconomics: An Open Letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, June 12

374. Why did Manmohan Singh and LK Advani apologise to one another? Is Indian politics essentially collusive, not competitive, aiming only to preserve and promote the post-1947 Dilli Raj at the expense of the whole of India? We seem to have no Churchillian repartee (except perhaps from Bihar occasionally) June 18

375. Are Iran’s Revolutionaries now Reactionaries? George Orwell would have understood. A fresh poll may be the only answer Are Iran’s Revolutionaries now Reactionaries? George Orwell would have understood. A fresh poll may be the only answer June 22

376. My March 25 1991 memo to Rajiv (which never reached him) is something the present Government seems to have followed: all for the best of course! July 12

377. Disquietude about France’s behaviour towards India on July 14 2009 July 14

378. Does the Govt. of India assume “foreign investors and analysts” are a key constituency for Indian economic policy-making? If so, why so? Have Govt. economists “learnt nothing, forgotten everything”? Some Bastille Day thoughts July 14

379. Letter to the GoI’s seniormost technical economist, May 21.July 19

380. Excuse me but young Kasab in fact confessed many months ago, immediately after he was captured – he deserves 20 or 30 years in an Indian prison, and a chance to become a model prisoner who will stand against the very terrorists who sent him on his vile mission July 20

381. Finally, three months late, the GoI responds to American and Pakistani allegations about Balochistan July 24

382. Thoughts, words, deeds: My work 1973-2010

M1. Map of Asia c. 1900

M2. Map of Chinese Empire c. 1900

M3. Map of Sinkiang, Tibet and Neighbours 1944

M4. China’s Secretly Built 1957 Road Through India’s Aksai Chin

M5. Map of Kashmir to Sinkiang 1944

M6. Map of India-Tibet-China-Mongolia 1959

M7. Map of India, Afghanistan, Russia, China, 1897

M8. Map of Xinjiang/Sinkiang/E Turkestan

M9. Map of Bombay/Mumbai 1909

M10-M13. Himalayan Expedition, West Sikkim 1970 – 1,2,3,4

Does the Govt. of India assume “foreign investors and analysts” are a key constituency for Indian economic policy-making? If so, why so? Have Govt. economists “learnt nothing, forgotten everything”? Some Bastille Day thoughts

July 14, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Today is Bastille Day in France and the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, at the invitation of President Sarkozy, is visiting Paris (where the Government of India has flown in military contingents to participate in the annual parade), before he goes to another summit in Egypt with Present Mubarak and others, following his recent summits in Italy with the Pope and others, and in Russia with President Medvedev and others, and in London with President Obama and others, etc. Dr Singh has almost certainly become the most internationally well-travelled of all Indian leaders on official visits ever in history, which adds to his having had the longest experience in India’s bureaucracy of any Indian political leader in history, which came to be followed by his stint in the Rajya Sabha as Finance Minister and now as a two-term Prime Minister.

But as a result of being out of the country yesterday, the Prime Minister would have missed the TV interview broadcast last night with his chief economic policy aide when it was said that “foreign investors and analysts” are an important constituency for Indian economic policy-makers, as expressed in the President’s speech to the new 15th Lok Sabha or Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech last week. The interviewer seemed to agree and constantly pressed the aide, who is doubtless the most prominent Government economist on television, about how stock-market brokers and businessmen seemed to have found the Budget not to their immediate liking, and how privatisation or “raising insurance caps” would have been seen by businessmen as crucial elements of future economic reform. In fact privatisation or the insurance business have little to do with any important economic reform but the lobbying power and spin-control of organised business becomes manifest in getting interviewers to ask such questions of Government spokesmen – all part of the (doubtless unconscious) process of camouflaging their private interests in the guise of purported public economic policy discussion.

I have taken a very different view. For example, I said a few years ago in starkest contrast:

“Running through the new foreign policy is a fiction that it is driven by a new economic motivation to improve development and mass well-being in India. The bizarre idea of creating hundreds of so-called “Special Economic Zones” (reminiscent of 17th and 18th Century colonial fortifications) illustrates this. India’s ordinary anonymous masses ~ certainly the 850 million people entirely outside the organised sector ~ have little or nothing to do with any of this. Benefits will accrue only to the ten million Indian nomenclatura controlling or having access to the gaping exit holes to the outside world in the new semi-closed economy with its endless deficit finance paid for by unlimited printing of an inconvertible domestic currency. It is as fallacious to think private investment from foreign or domestic businessmen will support public “infrastructure” creation as it is to think foreign exchange reserves are like tax revenues in being available for Government expenditure on “infrastructure”. Such fallacies are intellectual products of either those who know no economics at all or those who have forgotten whatever little they might have been once mistaught in their youth. What serious economics does say is that Government should generally have nothing to do with any kind of private business, and instead should focus on properly providing public goods and services, encourage competition in all avenues of economic activity and prevent or regulate monopoly, and see to it all firms pay taxes they are due to pay. That is it. It is as bad for Government to be pampering organised foreign or domestic business or organised labour with innumerable subsidies, as has been happening in India for decades, as it is to make enterprise difficult with red tape and hurdles. Businessmen are grown ups and should be allowed to freely risk their capital and make their profits or their losses without public intervention. An economics-based policy would have single-mindedly sought to improve the financial condition of every governmental entity in the country, with the aim of improving the provision of public goods and services to all 1,000 million Indians. If and when budgets of all governmental entities become sound, foreign creditors would automatically line up before them with loans to sell, and ambitious development goals can be accomplished. As long as public budgets (and public accounts) remain in an outrageous shambles, nothing can be in fact achieved and only propaganda, corruption and paper-money creation results instead. Whatever economic growth does occur is due to new enterprise and normal technological progress, and is mostly despite and not because of New Delhi’s bureaucrats (see “The Dream Team: A Critique”, The Statesman 6-8 January 2006). The first aspect of the new Indian foreign policy has been for Government to become wholly ingratiating towards any and all “First World” members visiting India who may deign to consider any kind of collaboration whatsoever. The long line of foreign businessmen and heads of government having photo-ops with the Indian PM began with Vajpayee and has continued with Manmohan, especially when there is a large weapons’ or commercial aircraft or other purchase to be signed. The flip-side has been ministerial and especially Prime Ministerial trips abroad ~ from Vajpayee’s to a Singapore golf-cart immediately after commiserating Gujarat, to Manmohan receiving foreign honorary doctorates while still holding public office. Subservience to foreign business interests in the name of economic policy extends very easily to Indian naval, military or diplomatic assets being used to provide policing or support services for the great powers as and when they may ask for it. Hence, Indian naval forces may be asked by the Americans to help fight pirates in the Indian Ocean, or escort this vessel or that, or India may be asked to provide refuelling or base facilities, or India may be requested to vote against Iran, Venezuela or whomever here or there. But there would be absolutely no question of India’s role in international politics being anything greater than that of a subaltern or comprador whose response must be an instant “Ji, Huzoor”. The official backing of the Tharoor candidacy was as futile and ridiculous as the quest for UN veto-power or the willingness to attend G-8 summits as an observer. While subservience towards the First World’s business and military interests is the “kiss up” aspect of the new foreign policy, an aggressive jingoism towards others is the “kick down” aspect….”

Dr Singh’s aide at one point challenged his friendly interviewer suggesting the very need for “fiscal stimulus” could hardly be questioned as if such a thing was beyond his imagination. And again, I am afraid, I may have been quite alone in December 2008 in lambasting as counter-productive all this purported “fiscal stimulus”. Just another colossal, indeed perverse, waste of public resources driven by organised business lobbies in their own interests, since in fact no one — not Dr Singh nor any of his aides, acolytes or flatterers, foreign or domestic, or anyone else anywhere — has any empirical or theoretical models of any kind depicting the phase, period or amplitude of any possible business-cycle that India’s economy may be on. Since none of them has any idea whatsoever of what the amplitude or frequency is of any such purported business cycle, they are as likely to have caused a pro-cyclical exacerbation of the amplitude as any sort of counter-cyclical dampening! (Viz., Leibniz ‘s principle of insufficient reason.)

How to see what is happening in Indian macroeconomic policy in the simplest comparative static terms is this: both the IS and LM curves are being pushed outwards drastically based on a deliberately erroneous assumption that there is or might develop mass involuntary unemployment of the sort Maynard Keynes once described in 1936. The overall impact on nominal interest-rates is indeterminate; the process of inflationary deficit-finance with an inconvertible currency that the Government has indulged in for half a century merely continues, further pushing us towards a potential hyperinflation.

The Bourbon regime swept away by the French Revolution that Bastille Day celebrates were said to have “learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”. I am afraid the macroeconomic illogic often found among Government economists, private commentators and business lobbyists in India today suggests to me nothing less than that they have either learnt nothing or forgotten everything from their economics classes decades ago! We in India may need our own storming of the Bastille to sweep away the perverse thoughts and power structures of the post-1947 Dilli Raj.

Subroto Roy
Kolkata

Mistaken Macroeconomics: An Open Letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh (12 June 2009, addendum 7 March 2013)

June 12, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook 7 March 2013
Dr Manmohan Singh is again talking about growth-rates, so I must again say what I said in 2009…

12 June 2009
The Hon’ble Dr Manmohan Singh, MP, Rajya Sabha

Prime Minister of India

Respected Pradhan Mantriji:

In September 1993 at the residence of the Indian Ambassador to Washington, I had the privilege of being introduced to you by our Ambassador the Hon’ble Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Bar-at-Law. Ambassador Ray was kind enough to introduce me saying the 1991 “Congress manifesto had been written on (my laptop) computer” – a reference to my work as adviser on economic and other policy to the late Rajiv Gandhi in his last months. I presented you a book Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s created and edited by myself and WE James at the University of Hawaii since 1986 — the unpublished manuscript of that book had reached Rajivji by my hand when he and I first met on September 18 1990. Tragically, my pleadings in subsequent months to those around him that he seemed to my layman’s eyes vulnerable to the assassin went unheeded.

When you and I met in 1993, we had both forgotten another meeting twenty years earlier in Paris. My father had been a long-time friend of the late Brahma Kaul, ICS, and the late MG Kaul, ICS, who knew you in your early days in the Government of India. In the late summer of 1973, you had acceded to my father’s request to advise me about economics before I embarked for the London School of Economics as a freshman undergraduate. You visited our then-home in Paris for about 40 minutes despite your busy schedule as part of an Indian delegation to the Aid-India Consortium. We ended up having a tense debate about the merits (as you saw them) and demerits (as I saw them) of the Soviet influence on Indian economic “planning”. You had not expected such controversy from a lad of 18 but you were kindly disposed and offered when departing to write a letter of introduction to Amartya Sen, then teaching at the LSE, which you later sent me and which I was delighted to carry to Professor Sen.

I may add my father, back in 1973 in Paris, had predicted to me that you would become Prime Minister of India one day, and he, now in his 90s, is joined by myself in sending our warm congratulations at the start of your second term in that high office.

The controversy though that you and I had entered that Paris day in 1973 about scientific economics as applied to India, must be renewed afresh!

This is because of your categorical statement on June 9 2009 to the new 15^th Lok Sabha:

“I am convinced, since our savings rate is as high as 35%, given the collective will, if all of us work together, we can achieve a growth-rate of 8%-9%, even if the world economy does not do well.” (Statement of Dr Manmohan Singh to the Lok Sabha, June 9 2009)

I am afraid there may be multiple reasons why such a statement is gravely and incorrigibly in error within scientific economics. From your high office as Prime Minister in a second term, faced perhaps with no significant opposition from either within or without your party, it is possible the effects of such an error may spell macroeconomic catastrophe for India.

As it happens, the British Labour Party politician Dr Meghnad Desai made an analogous statement to yours about India when he claimed in 2006 that China

“now has 10.4% growth on a 44 % savings rate… ”

Indeed the idea that China and India have had extremely high economic growth-rates based on purportedly astronomical savings rates has become a commonplace in recent years, repeated endlessly in international and domestic policy circles though perhaps without adequate basis.

1. Germany & Japan

What, at the outset, is supposed to be measured when we speak of “growth”? Indian businessmen and their media friends seem to think “growth” refers to something like nominal earnings before tax for the organised corporate sector, or any unspecified number that can be sold to visiting foreigners to induce them to park their funds in India: “You will get a 10% return if you invest in India” to which the visitor says “Oh that must mean India has 10% growth going on”. Of such nonsense are expensive international conferences in Davos and Delhi often made.

You will doubtless agree the economist at least must define economic growth properly and with care — what is referred to must be annual growth of per capita inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product. (Per capita National Income or Net National Product would be even better if available).

West Germany and Japan had the highest annual per capita real GDP growth-rates in the world economy starting from devastated post-World War II initial conditions. What were their measured rates?

West Germany: 6.6% in 1950-1960, falling to 3.5% by 1960-1970 falling to 2.4% by 1970-1978.

Japan: 6.8 % in 1952-1960 rising to 9.4% in 1960-1970 falling to 3.8 % in 1970-1978.

Thus in recent decades only Japan measured a spike in the 1960s of more than 9% annual growth of real per capita GDP. Now India and China are said to be achieving 8%-10 % and more year after year routinely!

Perhaps we are observing an incredible phenomenon of world economic history. Or perhaps it is just something incredible, something false and misleading, like a mirage in the desert.

You may agree that processes of measurement of real income in India both at federal and provincial levels, still remain well short of the world standards described by the UN’s System of National Accounts 1993. The actuality of our real GDP growth may be better than what is being measured or it may be worse than what is being measured – from the point of view of public decision-making we at present simply do not know which it is, and to overly rely on such numbers in national decisions may be unwise. In any event, India’s population is growing at near 2% so even if your Government’s measured number of 8% or 9% is taken at face-value, we have to subtract 2% population growth to get per capita figures.

2. Growth of the aam admi’s consumption-basket

The late Professor Milton Friedman had been an invited adviser in 1955 to the Government of India during the Second Five Year Plan’s formulation. The Government of India suppressed what he had to say and I had to publish it 34 years later in May 1989 during the 1986-1992 perestroika-for-India project that I led at the University of Hawaii in the United States. His November 1955 Memorandum to the Government of India is a chapter in the book Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s that I and WE James created.

At the 1989 project-conference itself, Professor Friedman made the following astute observation about all GNP, GDP etc growth-numbers that speaks for itself:

“I don’t believe the term GNP ought to be used unless it is supplemented by a different statistic: the rate of growth of the average consumption basket consumed by the ordinary individual in the country. I think GNP rates of growth can give very misleading information. For example, you have rapid rates of growth of GNP in the Soviet Union with a declining standard of life for the people. Because GNP includes monuments and includes also other things. I’m not saying that that is the case with India; I’m just saying I would like to see the two figures together.”

You may perhaps agree upon reflection that not only may our national income growth measurements be less robust than we want, it may be better to be measuring something else instead, or as well, as a measure of the economic welfare of India’s people, namely, “the rate of growth of the average consumption basket consumed by the ordinary individual in the country”, i.e., the rate of growth of the average consumption basket consumed by the aam admi.

It would be excellent indeed if you were to instruct your Government’s economists and other spokesmen to do so this as it may be something more reliable as an indicator of our economic realities than all the waffle generated by crude aggregate growth-rates.

3. Logic of your model

Thirdly, the logic needs to be spelled out of the economic model that underlies such statements as yours or Meghnad Desai’s that seek to operationally relate savings rates to aggregate growth rates in India or China. This seems not to have been done publicly in living memory by the Planning Commission or other Government economists. I have had to refer, therefore, to pages 251-253 of my own Cambridge doctoral thesis under Professor Frank Hahn thirty years ago, titled “On liberty and economic growth: preface to a philosophy for India”, where the logic of such models as yours was spelled out briefly as follows:

Let

K_t be capital stock

Y_t be national output

I_t be the level of real investment

S_t be the level of real savings

By definition

I_t = K _t+1 – K_t

By assumption

K_t = k Y_t 0 < k < 1

S_t = sY_t 0 < s <1

In equilibrium ex ante investment equals ex ante savings

I_t = S_t

Hence in equilibrium

sY_t = K _t+1 – K_t

s/k = g

where g is defined to be the rate of growth (Y _t+1-Y_t)/Y_{t .}

The left hand side then defines the “warranted rate of growth” which must maintain the famous “knife-edge” with the right hand side “natural rate of growth”.

Your June 9 2009 Lok Sabha statement that a 35% rate of savings in India may lead to an 8%-9% rate of economic growth in India, or Meghnad Desai’s statement that a 44% rate of savings in China led to a 10.4% growth there, can only be made meaningful in the context of a logical economic model like the one I have given above.

[In the open-economy version of the model, let M_tbe imports, E_t be exports, F_t net capital inflows.

Assume

M_t= aI_t + bY_t 0 < a, b < 1

E_t= E for all t

Balance of payments is

B_t = M_t – E_t– F_t

In equilibrium I_t = S_t + B_t

F_t = (s+b) Y_t – (1-a) I_t - E is a kind of “warranted” level of net capital inflow.]

You may perhaps agree upon reflection that building the entire macroeconomic policy of the Government of India merely upon a piece of economic logic as simplistic as the

s/k = g

equation above, may spell an unacceptable risk to the future economic well-being of our vast population. An alternative procedural direction for macroeconomic policy, with more obviously positive and profound consequences, may have been that which I sought to persuade Rajiv Gandhi about with some success in 1990-1991. Namely, to systematically seek to improve towards normalcy the budgets, financial positions and decision-making capacities of the Union and all state and local governments as well as all public institutions, organisations, entities, and projects in general, with the aim of making our domestic money a genuine hard currency of the world again after seven decades, so that any ordinary resident of India may hold and trade precious metals and foreign exchange at his/her local bank just like all those glamorous privileged NRIs have been permitted to do. Such an alternative path has been described in “The Indian Revolution”, “Against Quackery”, “The Dream Team: A Critique”, “India’s Macroeconomics”, “Indian Inflation”, etc.

4. Gross exaggeration of real savings rate by misreading deposit multiplication

Specifically, I am afraid you may have been misled into thinking India’s real savings rate, s, is as high as 35% just as Meghnad Desai may have misled himself into thinking China’s real savings rate is as high as 44%.

Neither of you may have wanted to make such a claim if you had referred to the fact that over the last 25 years, the average savings rate across all OECD countries has been less than 10%. Economic theory always finds claims of discontinuous behaviour to be questionable. If the average OECD citizen has been trying to save 10% of disposable income at best, it appears prima facie odd that India’s PM claims a savings rate as high as 35% for India or a British politician has claimed a savings rate as high as 44% for China. Something may be wrong in the measurement of the allegedly astronomical savings rates of India and China. The late Professor Nicholas Kaldor himself, after all, suggested it was rich people who saved and poor people who did not for the simple reason the former had something left over to save which the latter did not!

And indeed something is wrong in the measurements. What has happened, I believe, is that there has been a misreading of the vast nominal expansion of bank deposits via deposit-multiplication in the Indian banking system, an expansion that has been caused by explosive deficit finance over the last four or five decades. That vast nominal expansion of bank-deposits has been misread as indicating growth of real savings behaviour instead. I have written and spoken about and shown this quite extensively in the last half dozen years since I first discovered it in the case of India. E.g., in a lecture titled “Can India become an economic superpower or will there be a monetary meltdown?” at Cardiff University’s Institute of Applied Macroeconomics and at London’s Institute of Economic Affairs in April 2005, as well as in May 2005 at a monetary economics seminar invited at the RBI by Dr Narendra Jadav. The same may be true of China though I have looked at it much less.

How I described this phenomenon in a 2007 article in The Statesman is this:

“Savings is indeed normally measured by adding financial and non-financial savings. Financial savings include bank-deposits. But India is not a normal country in this. Nor is China. Both have seen massive exponential growth of bank-deposits in the last few decades. Does this mean Indians and Chinese are saving phenomenally high fractions of their incomes by assiduously putting money away into their shaky nationalized banks? Sadly, it does not. What has happened is government deficit-financing has grown explosively in both countries over decades. In a “fractional reserve” banking system (i.e. a system where your bank does not keep the money you deposited there but lends out almost all of it immediately), government expenditure causes bank-lending, and bank-lending causes bank-deposits to expand. Yes there has been massive expansion of bank-deposits in India but it is a nominal paper phenomenon and does not signify superhuman savings behaviour. Indians keep their assets mostly in metals, land, property, cattle, etc., and as cash, not as bank deposits.”

An article of mine in 2008 in Business Standard put it like this:

“India has followed in peacetime over six decades what the US and Britain followed during war. Our vast growth of bank deposits in recent decades has been mostly a paper (or nominal) phenomenon caused by unlimited deficit finance in a fractional reserve banking system. Policy makers have widely misinterpreted it as indicating a real phenomenon of incredibly high savings behaviour. In an inflationary environment, people save their wealth less as paper deposits than as real assets like land, cattle, buildings, machinery, food stocks, jewellery etc.”

If you asked me “What then is India’s real savings rate?” I have little answer to give except to say I know what it is not – it is not what the Government of India says it is. It is certainly unlikely to be anywhere near the 35% you stated it to be in your June 9 2009 Lok Sabha statement. If the OECD’s real savings rate has been something like 10% out of disposable income, I might accept India’s is, say, 15% at a maximum when properly measured – far from the 35% being claimed. What I believe may have been mismeasured by you and Meghnad Desai and many others as indicating high real savings is actually the nominal or paper expansion of bank-deposits in a fractional reserve banking system induced by runaway government deficit-spending in both India and China over the last several decades.

5. Technological progress and the mainsprings of real economic growth

So much for the g and s variables in the s/k = g equation in your economic model. But the assumed constant k is a big problem too!

During the 1989 perestroika-for-India project-conference, Professor Friedman referred to his 1955 experience in India and said this about the assumption of a constant k:

“I think there was an enormously important point… That was the almost universal acceptance at that time of the view that there was a sort of technologically fixed capital output ratio. That if you wanted to develop, you just had to figure out how much capital you needed, used as a statistical technological capital output ratio, and by God the next day you could immediately tell what output you were going to achieve. That was a large part of the motivation behind some of the measures that were taken then.”

The crucial problem of the sort of growth-model from which your formulation relating savings to growth arises is that, with a constant k, you have necessarily neglected the real source of economic growth, which is technological progress!

I said in the 2007 article referred to above:

“Economic growth in India as elsewhere arises not because of what politicians and bureaucrats do in capital cities, but because of spontaneous technological progress, improved productivity and learning-by-doing on part of the general population. Technological progress is a very general notion, and applies to any and every production activity or commercial transaction that now can be accomplished more easily or using fewer inputs than before.”

In “Growth and Government Delusion” published in The Statesman last year, I described the growth process more fully like this:

“The mainsprings of real growth in the wealth of the individual, and so of the nation, are greater practical learning, increases in capital resources and improvements in technology. Deeper skills and improved dexterity cause output produced with fewer inputs than before, i.e. greater productivity. Adam Smith said there is “invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many”. Consider a real life example. A fresh engineering graduate knows dynamometers are needed in testing and performance-certification of diesel engines. He strips open a meter, finds out how it works, asks engine manufacturers what design improvements they want to see, whether they will buy from him if he can make the improvement. He finds out prices and properties of machine tools needed and wages paid currently to skilled labour, calculates expected revenues and costs, and finally tries to persuade a bank of his production plans, promising to repay loans from his returns. Overcoming restrictions of religion or caste, the secular agent is spurred by expectation of future gains to approach various others with offers of contract, and so organize their efforts into one. If all his offers ~ to creditors, labour, suppliers ~ are accepted he is, for the moment, in business. He may not be for long ~ but if he succeeds his actions will have caused an improvement in design of dynamometers and a reduction in the cost of diesel engines, as well as an increase in the economy’s produced means of production (its capital stock) and in the value of contracts made. His creditors are more confident of his ability to repay, his buyers of his product quality, he himself knows more of his workers’ skills, etc. If these people enter a second and then a third and fourth set of contracts, the increase in mutual trust in coming to agreement will quickly decline in relation to the increased output of capital goods. The first source of increasing returns to scale in production, and hence the mainspring of real economic growth, arises from the successful completion of exchange. Transforming inputs into outputs necessarily takes time, and it is for that time the innovator or entrepreneur or “capitalist” or “adventurer” must persuade his creditors to trust him, whether bankers who have lent him capital or workers who have lent him labour. The essence of the enterprise (or “firm”) he tries to get underway consists of no more than the set of contracts he has entered into with the various others, his position being unique because he is the only one to know who all the others happen to be at the same time. In terms introduced by Professor Frank Hahn, the entrepreneur transforms himself from being “anonymous” to being “named” in the eyes of others, while also finding out qualities attaching to the names of those encountered in commerce. Profits earned are partly a measure of the entrepreneur’s success in this simultaneous process of discovery and advertisement. Another potential entrepreneur, fresh from engineering college, may soon pursue the pioneer’s success and start displacing his product in the market ~ eventually chasers become pioneers and then get chased themselves, and a process of dynamic competition would be underway. As it unfolds, anonymous and obscure graduates from engineering colleges become by dint of their efforts and a little luck, named and reputable firms and perhaps founders of industrial families. Multiply this simple story many times, with a few million different entrepreneurs and hundreds of thousands of different goods and services, and we shall be witnessing India’s actual Industrial Revolution, not the fake promise of it from self-seeking politicians and bureaucrats.”

Technological progress in a myriad of ways and discovery of new resources are important factors contributing to India’s growth today. But while India’s “real” economy does well, the “nominal” paper-money economy controlled by Government does not. Continuous deficit financing for half a century has led to exponential growth of public debt and broad money, and, as noted, the vast growth of nominal bank-deposits has been misinterpreted as indicating unusually high real savings behaviour when it in fact may just signal vast amounts of government debt being held by our nationalised banks. These bank assets may be liquid domestically but are illiquid internationally since our government debt is not held by domestic households as voluntary savings nor has it been a liquid asset held worldwide in foreign portfolios.

What politicians of all parties, especially your own and the BJP and CPI-M since they are the three largest, have been presiding over is exponential growth of our paper money supply, which has even reached 22% per annum. Parliament and the Government should be taking honest responsibility for this because it may certainly portend double-digit inflation (i.e., decline in the value of paper-money) perhaps as high as 14%-15% per annum, something that is certain to affect the aam admi’s economic welfare adversely.

6. Selling Government assets to Big Business is a bad idea in a potentially hyperinflationary economy

Respected PradhanMantriji, the record would show that I, and really I alone, 25 years ago, may have been the first among Indian economists to advocate the privatisation of the public sector. (Viz, “Silver Jubilee of Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India”.) In spite of this, I have to say clearly now that in present circumstances of a potentially hyperinflationary economy created by your Government and its predecessors, I believe your Government’s present plans to sell Government assets may be an exceptionally unwise and imprudent idea. The reasoning is very simple from within monetary economics.

Government every year has produced paper rupees and bank deposits in practically unlimited amounts to pay for its practically unlimited deficit financing, and it has behaved thus over decades. Such has been the nature of the macroeconomic process that all Indian political parties have been part of, whether they are aware of it or not.

Indian Big Business has an acute sense of this long-term nominal/paper expansion of India’s economy, and acts towards converting wherever possible its own hoards of paper rupees and rupee-denominated assets into more valuable portfolios for itself of real or durable assets, most conspicuously including hard-currency denominated assets, farm-land and urban real-estate, and, now, the physical assets of the Indian public sector. Such a path of trying to transform local domestic paper assets – produced unlimitedly by Government monetary and fiscal policy and naturally destined to depreciate — into real durable assets, is a privately rational course of action to follow in an inflationary economy. It is not rocket-science to realise the long-term path of rupee-denominated assets is downwards in comparison to the hard-currencies of the world – just compare our money supply growth and inflation rates with those of the rest of the world.

The Statesman of November 16 2006 had a lead editorial titled Government’s land-fraud: Cheating peasants in a hyperinflation-prone economy which said:

“There is something fundamentally dishonourable about the way the Centre, the state of West Bengal and other state governments are treating the issue of expropriating peasants, farm-workers, petty shop-keepers etc of their small plots of land in the interests of promoters, industrialists and other businessmen. Singur may be but one example of a phenomenon being seen all over the country: Hyderabad, Karnataka, Kerala, Haryana, everywhere. So-called “Special Economic Zones” will merely exacerbate the problem many times over. India and its governments do not belong only to business and industrial lobbies, and what is good for private industrialists may or may not be good for India’s people as a whole. Economic development does not necessarily come to be defined by a few factories or high-rise housing complexes being built here or there on land that has been taken over by the Government, paying paper-money compensation to existing stakeholders, and then resold to promoters or industrialists backed by powerful political interest-groups on a promise that a few thousand new jobs will be created. One fundamental problem has to do with inadequate systems of land-description and definition, implementation and recording of property rights. An equally fundamental problem has to do with fair valuation of land owned by peasants etc. in terms of an inconvertible paper-money. Every serious economist knows that “land” is defined as that specific factor of production and real asset whose supply is fixed and does not increase in response to its price. Every serious economist also knows that paper-money is that nominal asset whose price can be made to catastrophically decline by a massive increase in its supply, i.e. by Government printing more of the paper it holds a monopoly to print. For Government to compensate people with paper-money it prints itself by valuing their land on the basis of an average of the price of the last few years, is for Government to cheat them of the fair present-value of the land. That present-value of land must be calculated in the way the present-value of any asset comes to be calculated, namely, by summing the likely discounted cash-flows of future values. And those future values should account for the likelihood of a massive future inflation causing decline in the value of paper-money in view of the fact we in India have a domestic public debt of some Rs. 30 trillion (Rs. 30 lakh crore) and counting, and money supply growth rates averaging 16-17% per annum. In fact, a responsible Government would, given the inconvertible nature of the rupee, have used foreign exchange or gold as the unit of account in calculating future-values of the land. India’s peasants are probably being cheated by their Government of real assets whose value is expected to rise, receiving nominal paper assets in compensation whose value is expected to fall.”

Shortly afterwards the Hon’ble MP for Kolkata Dakshin, Km Mamata Banerjee, started her protest fast, riveting the nation’s attention in the winter of 2006-2007. What goes for government buying land on behalf of its businessman friends also goes, mutatis mutandis, for the public sector’s real assets being bought up by the private sector using domestic paper money in a potentially hyperinflationary economy. If your new Government wishes to see real assets of the public sector being sold for paper money, let it seek to value these assets not in inconvertible rupees that Government itself has been producing in unlimited quantities but perhaps in forex or gold-units instead!

In the 2004-2005 volume Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant, edited by myself and Professor John Clarke, there is a chapter by Professor Patrick Minford on Margaret Thatcher’s fiscal and monetary policy (macroeconomics) that was placed ahead of the chapter by Professor Martin Ricketts on Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation (microeconomics). India’s fiscal and monetary or macroeconomic problems are far worse today than Britain’s were when Margaret Thatcher came to power. We need to get our macroeconomic problems sorted before we attempt the microeconomic privatisation of public assets.

It is wonderful that your young party colleague, the Hon’ble MP from Amethi, Shri Rahul Gandhi, has declined to join the present Government and instead wishes to reflect further on the “common man” and “common woman” about whom I had described his late father talking to me on September 18 1990. Certainly the aam admi is not someone to be found among India’s lobbyists of organised Big Business or organised Big Labour who have tended to control government agendas from the big cities.

With my warmest personal regards and respect, I remain,

Cordially yours

Subroto Roy, PhD (Cantab.), BScEcon (London)

Kolkata

Posted in 15th Lok Sabha, Academic economics, Academic freedom, Academic research, Adam Smith, Banking, Bengal, Big Business and Big Labour, BJP, Cambridge Univ Economics, Capital and labour, China's macroeconomics, China's savings rate, China's Economy, Congress Party, Deposit multiplication, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Growth, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of Public Finance, Enterprise and entrepeneurship, European Community, Financial Management, Financial markets, Foreign exchange controls, General equilbrium theory, Germany, Governance, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, Growth rates (economic), India's Big Business, India's Government economists, India's savings rate, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Banking, India's Budget, India's bureaucracy, India's Capital Markets, India's corporate governance, India's Economy, India's farmers, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's grassroots activists, India's inflation, India's Land, India's Lok Sabha, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's Parliament, India's political lobbyists, India's political parties, India's poverty, India's Public Finance, India's Reserve Bank, India's Revolution, India's State Finances, India's Union-State relations, Inflation, Inflation targeting, Interest group politics, Japan, London School of Economics, Mamata Banerjee, Manmohan Singh, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher's Revolution, Martin Ricketts, Milton Friedman, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, Non-Resident Indians, OECD savings rates, Paper money and deposits, Parliamentary Backbenchers, Political Economy, Public Choice/Public Finance, Rahul Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, Redeposits, Siddhartha Shankar Ray. 1 Comment »

How tightly will organised Big Business be able to control economic policies this time?

May 26, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

The power of organised Big Business over New Delhi’s economic policies (whether Congress-led or BJP-led) was signalled by the presence in the audience at Rashtrapati Bhavan last week of several prominent lobbyists when Dr Manmohan Singh and his senior-most Cabinet colleagues were being sworn-in by the President of India. Why were such witnesses needed at such an auspicious national occasion?

Organised Big Business (both private sector and public sector) along with organised Big Labour (whose interests are represented most ably by New Delhi’s official communist parties like the CPI-M and CPI), are astutely aware of how best to advance their own economic interests; this usually gets assisted nicely enough through clever use of our comprador English-language TV, newspaper and magazine media. Shortly after the election results, lobbyists were all over commercial TV proposing things like FDI in insurance and airports etc– as if that was the meaning of the Sonia-Rahul mandate or were issues of high national priority. A typical piece of such “pretend-economics” appears in today’s business-press from a formerly Leftist Indian bureaucrat: “With its decisive victory, the new Manmohan Singh government should at last be able to implement the required second generation reforms. Their lineaments (sic) are well known and with the removal of the Left’s veto, many of those stalled in the legislature as well as those which were forestalled can now be implemented. These should be able to put India back on a 9-10 per cent per annum growth rate…”

Today’s business-press also reports that the new Government is planning to create a fresh “Disinvestment Ministry” and Dr Singh’s chief economic policy aide is “a frontrunner among the names short-listed to head the new ministry” with Cabinet rank.

Now if any enterprising doctoral student was to investigate the question, I think the evidence would show that I, and I alone – not even BR Shenoy or AD Shroff or Jagdish Bhagwati — may have been the first among Indian economists to have argued in favour of the privatisation of India’s public sector. I did so precisely 25 years ago in Pricing, Planning and Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India, which was so unusual for its time that it attracted the lead editorial of The Times of London on the day it was published May 29 1984, and had its due impact on Indian economic policy then and since, as has been described elsewhere here. In 1990-1991 while with Rajiv Gandhi, I had floated an idea of literally giving away shares of the public sector to the public that owned it (as several other countries had been doing at that time), specifically perhaps giving them to the poorest panchayats in aid of their development. In 2004-2005, upon returning to Britain after many years, I helped create the book Margaret Thatcher’s Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant, and Margaret Thatcher if anyone was a paragon of privatisation.

That being said, I have to say I think a new Indian policy of creating a Ministry to privatise India’s public sector is probably a very BAD idea indeed in present circumstances — mainly because it will be driven by the interests of the organised Big Business lobbies that have so profoundly and subtly been able to control the New Delhi Government’s behaviour in recent decades.

Such lobbyist control is exercised often without the Government even realising or comprehending its parameters. For example, ask yourself: Is there any record anywhere of Dr Manmohan Singh, in his long career as a Government economist and then as a Rajya Sabha MP, having ever proposed before 2004-2005 that nuclear reactors were something vitally important to India’s future? And why do you suppose the most prominent Indian business lobby spent a million dollars and registered itself as an official lobbyist in Washington DC to promote the nuclear deal among American legislators? Because Big Business was feeling generous and altruistic towards the “energy security” of the ordinary people of India? Hardly. Indian Big Business calculates and acts in its own interests, as is only to be expected under economic assumptions; those interests are frequently camouflaged by their lobbyist and media friends into seeming to be economic policy for the country as a whole.

Now our Government every year produces paper rupees and bank deposits in practically unlimited amounts to pay for its practically unlimited deficit financing, and it has behaved thus over decades. Why we do not hear about this at all is because the most prominent Government economists themselves remain clueless — sometimes by choice, mostly by sheer ignorance — about the nature of the macroeconomic process that they are or have been part of. (See my “India’s Macroeconomics”, “The Dream Team: A Critique” etc elsewhere here). As for the Opposition’s economists, the less said about the CPI-M’s economists the better while the BJP, poor thing, has absolutely no economists at all!

Briefly speaking, Indian Big Business has acquired an acute sense of this long-term nominal/paper expansion of India’s economy, and as a result acts towards converting wherever possible its own hoards of paper rupees and rupee-denominated assets into more valuable portfolios for itself of real or durable assets, most conspicuously including hard-currency denominated assets, farm-land and urban real-estate, and, now, the physical assets of the Indian public sector. Such a path of trying to transform local domestic paper assets – produced unlimitedly by Government monetary and fiscal policy and naturally destined to depreciate — into real durable assets, is a privately rational course of action to follow in an inflationary economy. It is not rocket-science to realise the long-term path of the Indian rupee is downwards in comparison to the hard-currencies of the world – just compare our money supply growth and inflation rates with those of the rest of the world.

The Statesman of November 15 2006 had a lead editorial titled Government’s land-fraud: Cheating peasants in a hyperinflation-prone economy. It said:

Mamata Banerjee started her famous protest fast-unto-death in Kolkata not long afterwards, riveting the nation’s attention in the winter of 2006-2007.

What goes for the government buying land on behalf of its businessman friends also goes, mutatis mutandis, for the public sector’s real assets being bought up by the private sector using domestic paper money in a potentially hyperinflationary economy. If Dr Singh’s new Government wishes to see real public sector assets being sold, let the Government seek to value these assets not in inconvertible rupees which the Government itself has been producing in unlimited quantities but rather in forex or gold-units instead!

Today’s headline says “Short of cash, govt. plans to revive disinvestment ministry”. Big Business’s powerful lobbies will suggest that real public assets must be sold (to whom? to organised Big Business of course!) in order to solve the grave fiscal problems in an inflationary economy caused precisely by those grave fiscal problems! What I said in 2002 at IndiaSeminar may still be found to apply: I said the BJP’s privatisation ideas “deserve to be condemned…because they have made themselves believe that the proceeds of selling the public sector should merely go into patching up the bleeding haemorrhage which is India’s fiscal and monetary situation… (w)hile…Congress were largely responsible for that haemorrhage to have occurred in the first place.”

If the new Government would like to know how to proceed more wisely, they need to read and grasp, in the book edited by myself and Professor John Clarke in 2004-2005, the chapter by Professor Patrick Minford on Margaret Thatcher’s fiscal and monetary policy (macroeconomics) before they read the chapter by Professor Martin Ricketts on Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation (microeconomics). India’s fiscal and monetary or macroeconomic problems are far worse today than Britain’s were when Thatcher came in.

During the recent Election Campaign, I contrasted Dr Singh’s flattering praise in 2005 of the CPI-M’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee with Sonia Gandhi’s pro-Mamata line in 2009 saying the CPI-M had taken land away from the poor. This may soon signal a new fault-line in the new Cabinet too on economic policy with respect to not only land but also public sector privatisation – with Dr Singh’s pro-Big Business acolytes on one side and Mamata Banerjee’s stance in favour of small-scale unorganised business and labour on the other. Party heavyweights like Dr Singh himself and Sharad Pawar and Pranab Mukherjee will weigh in one side or the other with Sonia being asked in due course to referee.

I personally am delighted to see the New Rahul Gandhi deciding not to be in Government and to instead reflect further on the “common man” and “common woman” about whom I had described his father talking to me on September 18 1990 at his home. Certainly the “aam admi” is not someone to be found among India’s organised Big Business or organised Big Labour nor their paid lobbyists in the big cities.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Posted in Academic research, AD Shroff, Asia and the West, Big Business and Big Labour, BR Shenoy, Britain, Britain in India, British history, Economic Policy, Economic quackery, Economic Theory, Economics of exchange controls, Economics of Public Finance, Economics of real estate valuation, Financial Management, Financial markets, Foreign exchange controls, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, India's Big Business, India's Banking, India's bureaucracy, India's Capital Markets, India's corporate finance, India's corporate governance, India's corruption, India's currency history, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's Industry, India's inflation, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's nomenclatura, India's peasants, India's political lobbyists, India's Politics, India's pork-barrel politics, India's poverty, India's Public Finance, Inflation, Land and political economy, Macroeconomics, Mamata Banerjee, Manmohan Singh, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher's Revolution, Martin Ricketts, Mendacity in politics, Microeconomics, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, Mumbai financial world, New Delhi, Patrick Minford, Political cynicism, Political Economy, Political mendacity, Political Science, Politics, Pork-barrel politics, Power-elites and nomenclatura, Practical wisdom, Principal-agent problem, Privatisation, Public Choice/Public Finance, Public property waste fraud, Rajiv Gandhi, Rational decisions, Singur and Nandigram, Sonia Gandhi, Statesmanship, The Statesman, The Times (London), University of Buckingham. Leave a Comment »

Letter to the GoI’s seniormost technical economist, May 21

May 21, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

“May 21 2009 It is wonderful to hear from you and I am honoured to find myself, perhaps accidentally, on the same list as so many of your distinguished colleagues among Government economists.

Your essay is most engaging. I am afraid I disagree with your assessment that the current problems “did not originate in the real sector of the economy” but were “triggered by the excesses of the financial system”. I have said to the contrary “There is no clear path to solving the great (alleged) economic and financial crisis because no one wants to admit its roots were the overvaluation (over decades) of American real-estate, and hence American assets in general.”

There is no more real sector than real-estate itself and American real-estate has tended to be overvalued as a result of government policy since the Carter Administration; the accumulated dangers along that path came to explode in the sub-prime crisis. Here as elsewhere in economics, the financial tail has not wagged the non-financial dog but vice versa.

I have also said “(i) foreign central banks might have been left holding more bad US debt than might be remembered, and dollar depreciation and an American inflation seem to be inevitable over the next several years; (ii) all those bad mortgages and foreclosures could vanish within a year or two by playing the demographic card and inviting in a few million new immigrants into the United States; restoring a worldwide idea of an American dream fueled by mass immigration may be the surest way for the American economy to restore itself.”

Re the comparison with the Great Depression, I believe

“there are overriding differences. Most important, the American economy and the world economy are both incomparably larger today in the value of their capital stock, and there has also been enormous technological progress over eight decades. Accordingly, it would take a much vaster event than the present turbulence — say, something like an exchange of multiple nuclear warheads with Russia causing Manhattan and the City of London to be destroyed — before there was a return to something comparable to the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression that followed. Besides, the roots of the crises are different. What happened back then? In 1922, the Genoa Currency Conference wanted to correct the main defect of the pre-1914 gold standard, which was freezing the price of gold while failing to stabilise the purchasing power of money. From 1922 until about 1927, Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York adopted price-stabilisation as the new American policy-objective. Britain was off the gold standard and the USA remained on it. The USA, as a major creditor nation, saw massive gold inflows which, by traditional gold standard principles, would have caused a massive inflation. Governor Strong invented the process of “sterilisation” of those gold inflows instead and thwarted the rise in domestic dollar prices of goods and services. Strong’s death in 1928 threw the Federal Reserve System into conflict and intellectual confusion. Dollar stabilisation ended as a policy. Surplus bank money was created on the release of gold that had been previously sterilised. The traditional balance between bulls and bears in the stock-market was upset. Normally, every seller of stock is a bear and every buyer a bull. Now, amateur investors appeared as bulls attracted by the sudden stock price rises, while bears, who sold securities, failed to place their money into deposit and were instead lured into lending it as call money to brokerages who then fuelled these speculative bulls. As of October 22, 1929 about $4 billion was the extent of such speculative lending when Chase National Bank’s customers called in their money. Chase National had to follow their instructions, as did other New York banks. New York’s Stock Exchange could hardly respond to a demand for $4 billion at a short notice and collapsed. Within a year, production had fallen by 26 per cent, prices by 14 per cent, personal income by 14 per cent, and the Greatest Depression of recorded history was in progress — involuntary unemployment levels in America reaching 25 per cent. That is not, by any reading, what we have today. Yes, there has been plenty of bad lending, plenty of duping shareholders and workers and plenty of excessive managerial payoffs. It will all take a large toll, and affect markets across the world. But it will be a toll relative to our plush comfortable modern standards, not those of 1929-1933. In fact, modern decision-makers have the obvious advantage that they can look back at history and know what is not to be done. The US and the world economy are resilient enough to ride over even the extra uncertainty arising from the ongoing presidential campaign, and then some.”

These quotes are from recent publications and may be found most easily under “America’s financial crises” at my site http://www.independentindian.com.

What may be of interest to the Government of India’s economists also may be a sample of my recent short articles on India’s monetary and fiscal economics based on my research beginning with my doctoral work under Frank Hahn at Cambridge in the 1970s and followed by my work with James Buchanan and Milton Friedman in America in the 1980s and 1990s and later. One of these is even named “The Rangarajan Effect” which I first defined at a seminar invited by Dr Jadav at the RBI in May 2005!

http://independentindian.com/2008/08/24/rangarajan-effect/

http://independentindian.com/2008/09/28/monetary-integrity-and-the-rupee/

http://independentindian.com/2007/01/20/indias-macroeconomics/

http://independentindian.com/2007/02/04/fiscal-instability/

http://independentindian.com/2008/07/16/india-in-world-trade-payments/

http://independentindian.com/2007/03/05/fallacious-finance-the-congress-bjp-cpi-m-et-al-may-be-leading-india-to-hyperinflation/

http://independentindian.com/2007/02/20/our-policy-process-self-styled-planners-have-controlled-indias-paper-money-for-decades/

http://independentindian.com/2008/07/28/growth-of-real-income-money-prices-in-india-1869-2004/

http://independentindian.com/2008/07/17/growth-government-delusion/

http://independentindian.com/2008/07/09/indian-inflation-upside-down-economics-from-new-delhis-establishment/

http://independentindian.com/2008/02/26/how-to-budget-thrift-not-theft-should-guide-our-public-finances/

http://independentindian.com/2008/02/21/a-note-on-the-indian-policy-process/

With warm regards,

Cordially,

Subroto Roy, PhD (Cantab.), BScEcon(London)

Sometime Adviser to the Late Rajiv Gandhi, 1990-1991

Posted in Academic economics, Academic research, America's housing market, America's mortgage crisis, American financial crises, Big Business and Big Labour, Crash of 1929, Credit markets, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Growth, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of Public Finance, Government accounting, Government Budget Constraint, Government of India, India's Big Business, India's credit markets, India's Government economists, India's interest rates, India's savings rate, India's stock and debt markets, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's balance of payments, India's Banking, India's Budget, India's Capital Markets, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India's Foreign Exchange Reserves, India's Foreign Trade, India's Government Budget Constraint, India's Government Expenditure, India's inflation, India's Macroeconomics, India's Monetary & Fiscal Policy, India's pork-barrel politics, India's Public Finance, Inflation, Inflation targeting, Unorganised capital markets. Leave a Comment »

India’s incredibly volatile inflation rate!

March 20, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

Some months ago India’s inflation rate was said to be the highest it has been for decades and now today, right on cue, it is said to be the lowest it has been for decades! Today’s business press says Dr Manmohan Singh’s chief economic policy aide has apparently immediately expressed his keenness to see an even further purported “fiscal stimulus package” (aka pork-barrel politics prior to an election).

For myself, I have long given up on the credibility of such stuff emanating from our capital’s supposed policy-makers — putting it down, generally speaking, to what I consider and what I have called “New Delhi’s intellectual and moral bankruptcy”.

Here are two simple crude alternative ways to measure India’s (long-term trend) inflation-rate:

1. Take the Money-Supply Growth Rate, say 22% per annum, subtract from it the Growth of Real National Income, say 7%, get, hmmmm, 15%.

2. Find C&AG data for a series of several years; read off nominal expenditure on a dozen major heads of government bureaucracy (like “Central Secretariat”); calculate an average rate of growth of nominal expenditure on bureaucratic departments. On an assumption that Government of India bureaucracies, especially useless unproductive ones in New Delhi, seek to maintain their real consumption-levels, that growth of nominal expenditure reflects their beliefs about the actual change in the cost of living or decline in the value of money. Oddly enough, quick calculations of that amount to, hmmmm, 15% again!

For those who prefer to believe what emanates from New Delhi’s pretentious economists wallowing in their own ignorance, I wonder, as I said a couple of years ago on The Statesman’s frontpage, might I interest you in a marble structure in Agra, or perhaps a steel bridge over the Hooghly River, very famous, like Brooklyn Bridge itself….?

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Can President Obama resist the financial zombies (let alone slay them)? His economists need to consult Dr Anna J Schwartz

February 14, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

The wonders of the Internet continue to surprise (and yes Virginia, there was a world before SMS and before the Internet too). In early January, in context of India’s Satyam fraud (of a size of perhaps 1 or perhaps 2 billion dollars), I referred here to what seemed to me the likelihood of Satyam becoming a zombie company and I said “we in India have many such zombies walking around in the organised business sector”. I drew attention to Andrew Beattie’s astute definition of zombies and other such ghoulish phenomena in the financial world, and also referred to John Stepek’s excellent if brief November 2008 analysis “How zombie companies suck the life from an economy”. Today I find Ms Arianna Huffington has made reference to Mr Martin Wolf’s reference a couple of days ago to zombie companies and to his statement that President Obama needs to “Admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once.” Ms Huffington has agreed, though of course all this slaying may be easier said than done. (It is better that zombies not be created in the first place.)

Mr Wolf has pointedly asked a question that many around the world may have half-thought about but not articulated: “Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed?” It would be a grave and appalling state of affairs if it has, within less than a month of entering office. I am grateful to find in Ms Huffington’s article a reference to an October 2008 Wall Stret Journal interview of Dr Anna Jacobson Schwartz, perhaps the most respected voice in monetary economics today. There have been numerous people claiming to have predicted America’s financial crisis but none may have as much credibility as Dr Schwartz. Six years ago, in a National Bureau of Economic Research study dated November 2002, “Asset Price Inflation and Monetary Policy”,Working Paper 9321 she had said with utmost clarity: “It is crucial that central banks and regulatory authorities be aware of effects of asset price inflation on the stability of the financial system. Lending activity based on asset collateral during the boom is hazardous to the health of lenders when the boom collapses. One way that authorities can curb the distortion of lenders’ portfolios during asset price booms is to have in place capital requirements that increase with the growth of credit extensions collateralized by assets whose prices have escalated. If financial institutions avoid this pitfall, their soundness will not be impaired when assets backing loans fall in value. Rather than trying to gauge the effects of asset prices on core inflation, central banks may be better advised to be alert to the weakening of financial balance sheets in the aftermath of a fall in value of asset collateral backing loans….”

Most poignantly too, Dr Schwartz was present when Ben Bernanke said in a 2002 speech honouring the late Milton Friedman “I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.” Dr Schwartz told the Wall Street Journal ‘”This was [his] claim to be worthy of running the Fed”. “He was ‘familiar with history. He knew what had been done.’ But perhaps this is actually Mr. Bernanke’s biggest problem. Today’s crisis isn’t a replay of the problem in the 1930s, but our central bankers have responded by using the tools they should have used then. They are fighting the last war. The result, she argues, has been failure. ‘I don’t see that they’ve achieved what they should have been trying to achieve. So my verdict on this present Fed leadership is that they have not really done their job.’”

President Obama’s economists need to urgently consult Anna J Schwartz.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Postscript: My own brief views on the subject are at “October 1929? Not!” dated September 18 2008, and “America’s divided economists” dated October 26 2008. The latter article suggested that playing the demographic card and inducing a wave of immigration into the United States may be the surest way to move the housing demand-curve firmly upwards.

Posted in Accounting and audit, America's housing market, America's mortgage crisis, American financial crises, American history, Anna Schwartz, asymmetric information, Banking, Bankruptcy, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Benjamin Strong, Corporate Finance, Corporate fraud, Corporate Governance, Crash of 1929, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of housing markets, Economics of real estate valuation, Economics of Unemployment, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Banks, Financial Management, Financial markets, Fraud, Inflation, Inflation targeting, Macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, Obama Administration, Public Choice/Public Finance, Public property waste fraud, US economy, US Monetary and Fiscal Policy, USA, United States, USA, United States polity, Wall Street financial crises, Zombie companies. Leave a Comment »

My American years Part One 1980-90: battles for academic integrity & freedom

February 11, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

On the Blacksburg campus February 1982, my second year in America.

I had come to Blacksburg in August 1980 thanks to a letter Professor Frank Hahn had written on my behalf to Professor James M Buchanan in January 1980.

I was in an “All But Dissertation” stage at Cambridge when I got to Blacksburg; I completed the thesis while teaching in Blacksburg, sent it from there in September 1981, and went back to Cambridge for the viva voce examination in January 1982.

Professor Buchanan and his colleagues were welcoming and I came to learn much from them about the realities of public finance and democratic politics, which I very soon applied to my work on India.

Jim Buchanan had a reputation for running very tough conferences of scholars. He invited me to one such in the Spring of 1981. We were made to work very hard indeed. One of the books prescribed is still with me, In Search of a Monetary Constitution, ed. Leland Yeager, Harvard 1962, and something I still recommend to anyone wishing to understand the classical liberal position on monetary policy. The week-long 1981 conference had one rest-day; it was spent in part at an excellent theatre in a small rural town outside Blacksburg. This photo is of Jim Buchanan on the left and Gordon Tullock on the right; in between them is Ken Minogue of the London School of Economics — who, as it happened, had been Tutor for Admissions when I became a freshman there seven years earlier.

(I must have learnt something from Jim Buchanan about running conferences because nine years later in May-June 1989 at the University of Hawaii, I made the participants of the India-perestroika and Pakistan-perestroika conferences work very hard too.)

My first rooms in America in 1980 were in the attic of 703 Gracelyn Court, where I paid $160 or $170 per month to my marvellous landlady Betty Tillman. There were many family occasions I enjoyed with her family downstairs, and her cakes, bakes and puddings all remain with me today.

A borrowed electric typewriter may be seen in the photo: the age of the personal computer was still a few years away. The Department had a stand-alone “AB-Dic” word-processor which we considered a marvel of technology; the Internet did not exist but there was some kind of Intranet between geeks in computer science and engineering departments at different universities.

It was at Gracelyn Court that this letter reached me addressed by FA Hayek himself.

Professor Buchanan had moved to Blacksburg from Charlottesville some years earlier with the Centre for Study of Public Choice that he had founded. The Centre came to be housed at the President’s House of Virginia Tech (presumably the University President himself had another residence).

I was initially a Visiting Research Associate at the Centre and at the same time a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Economics Department. I was very kindly given a magnificent office at the Centre, on the upper floor, perhaps the one on the upper right hand side in the picture. It was undoubtedly the finest room I have ever had as an office. I may have had it for a whole year, either 1980-81 or 1981-82. When Professor Buchanan and the Centre left for George Mason University in 1983, the mansion returned to being the University President’s House and my old office presumably became a fine bedroom again.

I spent the summer of 1983 at a long libertarian conference in the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area in California. This is a photo from a barbecue during the conference with Professor Jean Baechler from France on the left; Leonard Liggio, who (along with Walter Grinder) had organised the conference, is at the right.

The first draft of the book that became Philosophy of Economics was written (in long hand) during that summer of 1983 in Palo Alto/Menlo Park. The initial title was “Principia Economica”, and the initial contracted publisher, the University of Chicago Press, had that title on the contract.

My principal supporter at the University of Chicago was that great American Theodore W. Schultz, then aged 81,

to whom the Press had initially sent the manuscript for review and who had recommended its prompt publication. Professor Schultz later told me to my face better what my book was about than I had realised myself, namely, it was about economics as knowledge, the epistemology of economics.

My parents came from India to visit me in California, and here we are at Yosemite.

Also to visit were Mr and Mrs Willis C Armstrong, our family friends who had known me from infancy. This is a photo of Bill and my mother on the left, and Louise and myself on the right, taken perhaps by my father. In the third week of January 1991, during the first Gulf War, Bill and I (acting on behalf of Rajiv Gandhi) came to form an extremely tenuous bridge between the US Administration and Saddam Hussain for about 24 hours, in an attempt to get a withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait without further loss of life. In December 1991 I gave the widow of Rajiv Gandhi a small tape containing my long-distance phone conversations from America with Rajiv during that episode.

I had driven with my sheltie puppy from Blacksburg to Palo Alto — through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona; my parents and I now drove with him back to Blacksburg from California, through Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. It may be a necessary though not sufficient condition to drive across America (or any other country) in order to understand it.

After a few days, we drove to New York via Pennsylvania where I became Visiting Assistant Professor in the Cornell Economics Department (on leave from being Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech). The few months at Cornell were noteworthy for the many long sessions I spent with Max Black. I shall add more about that here in due course. My parents returned to India (via Greece where my sister was) in the Autumn of 1983.

In May 1984, Indira Gandhi ruled in Delhi, and the ghost of Brezhnev was still fresh in Moscow. The era of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in America was at its height. Pricing, Planning & Politics: A Study of Economic Distortions in India emerging from my doctoral thesis though written in Blacksburg and Ithaca in 1982-1983, came to be published by London’s Institute of Economic Affairs on May 29 as Occasional Paper No. 69, ISBN: 0-255 36169-6; its text is reproduced elsewhere here.

It was the first critique after BR Shenoy of India’s Sovietesque economics since Jawaharlal Nehru’s time. The Times, London’s most eminent paper at the time, wrote its lead editorial comment about it on the day it was published, May 29 1984.

londonti

It used to take several days for the library at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to receive its copy of The Times of London and other British newspapers. I had not been told of the date of publication and did not know of what had happened in London on May 29 until perhaps June 2 — when a friend, Vasant Dave of a children’s charity, who was on campus, phoned me and congratulated me for being featured in The Times which he had just read in the University Library. “You mean they’ve reviewed it?” I asked him, “No, it’s the lead editorial.” “What?” I exclaimed. There was worse. Vasant was very soft-spoken and said “Yes, it’s titled ‘India’s Bad Example’” — which I misheard on the phone as “India’s Mad Example” Drat! I thought (or words to that effect), they must have lambasted me, as I rushed down to the Library to take a look.

The Times had said

I felt this may have been intended to be laudatory but it was also inaccurate and had to be corrected. I replied dated June 4 which The Times published in their edition of June 16 1984:

timesletter-11

The editorial itself may have been due to a conversation between Peter Bauer and William Rees-Mogg, so I later heard. The work sold 700 copies in its first month, a record for the publisher. The wife of one prominent Indian bureaucrat told me in Delhi in December 1988 it had affected her husband’s thinking drastically. A senior public finance economist told me he had been deputed at the Finance Ministry when the editorial appeared, and the Indian High Commission in London had urgently sent a copy of the editorial to the Ministry where it caused a stir. An IMF official told me years later that he saw the editorial on board a flight to India from the USA on the same day, and stopped in London to make a trip to the LSE’s bookshop to purchase a copy. Professor Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University had been a critic of aspects of Indian policy; he received a copy of the monograph in draft just before it was published and was kind enough to write I had “done an excellent job of setting out the problems afflicting our economic policies, unfortunately government-made problems!” My great professor at Cambridge, Frank Hahn, would be kind enough to say that he thought my “critique of Development Economics was powerful not only on methodological but also on economic theory grounds” — something that has been a source of delight to me.

In the Autumn of 1984, I went, thanks to Edwin Feulner Jr of the Heritage Foundation, to attend the Mont Pelerin Society Meetings being held at Cambridge (on “parole” from the US immigration authorities as my “green card” was being processed at the time). There I met for the first time Professor and Mrs Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman’s November 1955 memorandum to the Government of India is referred to in my monograph as “unpublished” in note 1; when I met Milton and Rose, I gave them a copy of my monograph; and requested Milton for his unpublished document; when he returned to Stanford he sent to me in Blacksburg his original 1955-56 documents on Indian planning. I published the 1955 document for the first time in May 1989 during the University of Hawaii perestroika-for-India project I was then leading, it appeared later in the 1992 volume Foundations of India’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, edited by myself and WE James. (The results of the Hawaii project reached Rajiv Gandhi through my hand in September 1990, as told elsewhere here in “Rajiv Gandhi and the Origins of India’s 1991 Economic Reform”.) The 1956 document was published in November 2006 on the front page of The Statesman, the same day my obituary of Milton appeared in the inside pages.

Meanwhile, my main work within economic theory, the “Principia Economica” manuscript, was being read by the University of Chicago Press’s five or six anonymous referees. One of them pointed out my argument had been anticipated years earlier in the work of MIT’s Sidney Stuart Alexander. I had no idea of this and was surprised; of course I knew Professor Alexander’s work in balance of payments theory but not in this field. I went to visit Professor Alexander in Boston, where this photo came to be taken perhaps in late 1984:

Professor Alexander was extremely gracious, and immediately declared with great generosity that it was clear to him my arguments in “Principia Economica” had been developed entirely independently of his work. He had come at the problem from an American philosophical tradition of Dewey, I had done so from a British tradition of Wittgenstein. (CS Peirce was probably the bridge between the two.) He and I had arrived at some similar conclusions but we had done so completely independently.

Also, I was much honoured by this letter of May 1 1984 sent to Blacksburg by Professor Sir John Hicks (1904-1989), among the greatest of 20th Century economists at the time, where he acknowledged his departure in later life from the position he had taken in 1934 and 1939 on the foundations of demand theory.

He later sent me a copy of his Wealth and Welfare: Collected Essays on Economic Theory, Vol. I, MIT Press 1981, as a gift. The context of our correspondence had to do with my criticism of the young Hicks and support for the ghost of Alfred Marshall in an article “Considerations on Utility, Benevolence and Taxation” I was publishing in the journal History of Political Economy published then at Duke University. In Philosophy of Economics, I would come to say about Hicks’s letter to me “It may be a sign of the times that economists, great and small, rarely if ever disclaim their past opinions; it is therefore an especially splendid example to have a great economist like Hicks doing so in this matter.” It was reminiscent of Gottlob Frege’s response to Russell’s paradox; Philosophy of Economics described Frege’s “Letter to Russell”, 1902 (Heijenoort, From Frege to Gödel, pp. 126-128) as “a document which must remain one of the most noble in all of modern scholarship; a fact recorded in Russell’s letter to Heijenoort.”

In Blacksburg, by the Summer and Fall of 1984 I was under attack following the arrival of what I considered “a gang of inert game theorists” — my theoretical manuscript had blown a permanent hole through what passes by the name of “social choice theory”, and they did not like it. Nor did they like the fact that I seemed to them to be a “conservative”/classical liberal Indian and my applied work on India’s economy seemed to their academic agenda an irrelevance. This is myself at the height of that attack in January 1985:

Professor Schultz at the University of Chicago came to my rescue and at his recommendation I was appointed Visiting Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

I declined, without thanks, the offer of another year at Virginia Tech.

On my last day in Blacksburg, a graduate student whom I had helped when she had been assaulted by a senior professor, cooked a meal before I started the drive West across the country. This is a photo from that meal:

In Provo, I gratefully found refuge at the excellent Economics Department led at the time by Professor Larry Wimmer.

It was at Provo that I first had a personal computer on my desk (an IBM as may be seen) and what a delight that was (no matter the noises that it made). I recall being struck by the fact a colleague possessed the incredible luxury of a portable personal computer (no one else did) which he could take home with him. It looked like an enormous briefcase but was apparently the technology-leader at the time. (Laptops seem not to have been invented as of 1985).

In October 1985, Professor Frank Hahn very kindly wrote to Larry Wimmer revising his 1980 opinion of my work now that the PhD was done, the India-work had led to The Times editorial and the theoretical work was proceeding well.

I had applied for a permanent position at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and had been interviewed positively at the American Economic Association meetings (in New York) in December 1985 by the department chairman Professor Fred C. Hung. At Provo, Dr James Moncur of the Manoa Department was visiting. Jim became a friend and recommended me to his colleagues in Manoa.

Professor Hung appointed me to that department as a “senior” Assistant Professor on tenure-track beginning September 1986. I had bargained for a rank of “Associate Professor” but was told the advertisement did not allow it; instead I was assured of being an early candidate for promotion and tenure subject to my book “Principia Economica” being accepted for publication. (The contract with the University of Chicago Press had become frayed.)

Hawaii was simply a superb place (though expensive).

Professor James Buchanan won the Economics “Nobel” in 1986 and I was asked by the Manoa Department to help raise its profile by inviting him to deliver a set of lectures, which he did excellently well in March 1988 to the University as well as the Honolulu community at large. Here he is at my 850 sq ft small condominium at Punahou Towers, 1621 Dole Street:

In August 1988, my manuscript “Principia Economica” was finally accepted for publication by Routledge of London and New York under the title Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason In Economic Inquiry. The contract with University of Chicago Press had fallen through and the manuscript was being read by Yale University Press and a few others but Routledge came through with the first concrete offer. I was delighted and these photos were taken in the Economics Department at Manoa by a colleague in September 1988 as the publisher needed them.

Milton and Rose Friedman came to Honolulu on a private holiday perhaps in January 1989; they had years earlier spent a sabbatical year at the Department.

Here is a luncheon that was arranged in their honour. They had in the Fall of 1988 been on their famous visit to China, and as I recall that was the main subject of discussion on the occasion.

Milton phoned me in my Manoa office and invited me to meet him and Rose at their hotel for a chat; we had met first at the 1984 Mont Pelerin meetings and he wished to know me better. I was honoured and turned up dutifully and we talked for perhaps an hour. I recall making a strong recommendation that he write his memoirs, especially so that the rumours and innuendo surrounding eg the Chile episode could be cleared up; I also said a “Collected Works” would be a great idea; when Milton and Rose published their memoirs Two Lucky People (Chicago 1998) I wondered if my first suggestion had come to be taken; as to the second, he wrote to me years later saying he felt no Collected Works were necessary.

From 1986 onwards, I had been requested by the University of Hawaii to lead a project with William E James on the political economy of “South Asia” .I had said there was no such place, that “South Asia” was a US State Department abstraction but there were India and Pakistan and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Afghanistan etc. Sister projects on India and Pakistan had been sponsored by the University, and in 1989 important conferences had been planned by myself and James in May for India and in June for Pakistan.

I was determined to publish for the first time Milton’s 1955 memorandum on India which the Government of India had suppressed or ignored at the time. At the hotel-meeting, I told Milton that and requested him to come to the India-conference in May; Milton and Rose said they would think about it, and later confirmed he would come for the first two days.

This is a photo of the initial luncheon at the home of the University President on May 21 1989. Milton and India’s Ambassador to the USA at the time were both garlanded with Hawaiian leis. The first photo was one of a joke from Milton as I recall which had everyone laughing.

There was no equivalent photo of the distinguished scholars who gathered for the Pakistan conference a month later.

The reason was that from February 1989 onwards I had become the victim of a most vicious racist defamation, engineered within the Economics Department at Manoa by a senior professor as a way to derail me before my expected Promotion and Tenure application in the Fall. All my extra time went to battling that though somehow I managed to teach some monetary economics well enough in 1989-1990 for a Japanese student to insist on being photographed with me and the book we had studied.

I was being seen by two or three temporarily powerful characters on the Manoa campus as an Uppity Indian who must be brought down. This time I decided to fight back — and what a saga came to unfold! It took me into the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and then the Ninth Circuit and upto the United States Supreme Court, not once but twice.

Milton Friedman and Theodore Schultz stood valiantly among my witnesses — first writing to the University’s authorities and later deposing in federal court.

Unfortunately, government lawyers, far from wanting to uphold and respect the laws of the United States, chose to deliberately violate them — compromising a judge, suborning demonstrable perjury and then brazenly purchasing my hired attorney (and getting caught doing it). Since September 2007, the State of Hawaii’s attorneys have been invited by me to return to the federal court and apologise for their unlawful behaviour as they are required by law to do.

They had not expected me to survive their illegalities but I did: I kept going.

Philosophy of Economics was published in London and New York in September 1989

The hardback quickly sold out on its own steam and the book went into paperback in 1991, and I was delighted to learn from a friend that it had been prescribed for a course at Yale Law School and was strewn along an alley in the bookshop:

The sister-volumes on India and Pakistan emerging from the University of Hawaii project led by myself and James were published in 1992 and 1993 in India, Pakistan, Britain and the United States.

As described elsewhere, the manuscript of the India-volume contributed to the origins of India’s 1991 economic reform during my encounter with Rajiv Gandhi in his last months; the Pakistan-volume came to contribute to the origins of the Pakistan-India peace process. The Indian publisher who had promised paperback volumes of both books reneged under leftwing pressure in Delhi; he has since passed away and James and I still await the University of Hawaii’s permission to publish both volumes freely on the Internet as copyright rests with the University President.

In 2004 from Britain, I wrote to the 9/11 Commission stating that it was possible that had the vicious illegalities against me not occurred at Manoa starting in 1989, we may have gone on after India and Pakistan to study Afghanistan, and come up with a pre-emptive academic analysis a decade before September 11 2001.

To be continued in Part Two.

Posted in Academic freedom, American academia, Aristotle, Asia and the West, BR Shenoy, BYU, Cambridge Univ Economics, Cambridge University, Cornell University, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Epistemology of Economics, Ethics, FA Hayek, Frank Hahn, Fraud on the Court, India's 1991 Economic Reform, India's Economic History, India's Economy, India-Pakistan peace process, Institute of Economic Affairs, Introduction and Contents, Iraq war, James M Buchanan, Knowledge and Scepticism, Law, London School of Economics, Max Black, Milton Friedman, Pakistan's economy, Perjury & Bribery in US Federal Court, Philosophy, Philosophy of Economics, Racism, Rajiv Gandhi, Roy vs University of Hawaii, September 11 attacks, Sidney Stuart Alexander, Theodore W Schultz, University of Chicago, University of Hawaii, US Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit, US District Court District of Hawaii, US Supreme Court, USA Rule of Law, Virgnia Tech. 1 Comment »

“A Dialogue in Macroeconomics” 1989 etc: sundry thoughts on US economic policy discourse

January 30, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

I have said here recently that some of the wisest advice President Obama or any leader anywhere can receive is that contained in Oliver Cromwell’s famous words “Think it possible you may be mistaken”.

This seems especially significant in context of new American macroeconomic and financial policies. Mr Steve Clemons reports today there may be less intellectual diversity in the new President’s economic team than is possible or desirable; if so, conversation may become stifled and a greater propensity towards groupthink may arise, hence a greater likelihood of mistakes.

It is possible the directions that different people might like to see the conversation extended are different, and that would be a good sign of course! For example, someone might think a Barro or a Mishkin could be the right addition of intellectual diversity, whereas others might suppose that to be the wrong direction towards more “market fundamentalism”. But it would be a pity if the economic conversation within the new Administration came to be artificially or ideologically circumscribed in any direction.

Certainly I believe macroeconomic policy-discourse in the United States or elsewhere needs to proceed to a recognition of the existence of JM Keynes’s original concept of “involuntary unemployment” as well as to ask whether the actual unemployment happens to be or not be of this sort. (It may be “frictional” or “structural” or “voluntary” or “seasonal” etc, not the involuntary unemployment Keynes had meant.) Furthermore, even if significant involuntary unemployment is identified, it needs to be asked whether government policy can be expected to improve or worsen outcomes. The argument must be made either way, and, in John Wisdom’s phrase, “Argument must be heard”.

“A Dialogue in Macroeconomics” which was Chapter 8 of my 1989 book Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, Library of Congress HB 72.R69) may provide some useful ballast. The saga that followed the book’s publication left me unable to write about the US economy anymore, except briefly in 1992 and 1994-95 in Washington and New York, read only by a few friends. Now in late 2008, I have published “October 1929? Not!” and “America’s divided economists” which may be of interest too, and which are republished below as well.

I have also added a couple of sundry points from an international perspective that I pointed to last September-October, namely

(i) foreign central banks might have been left holding more bad US debt than might be remembered, and dollar depreciation and an American inflation seem to be inevitable over the next several years;

(ii) all those bad mortgages and foreclosures could vanish within a year or two by playing the demographic card and inviting in a few million new immigrants into the United States; restoring a worldwide idea of an American dream fueled by mass immigration may be the surest way for the American economy to restore itself.

Subroto Roy

from Philosophy of Economics Routledge 1989

“Chapter 8.
A Dialogue in Macroeconomics

OUR next example is of quite a different sort, namely, the academic debate which has occurred in macroeconomics and monetary theory since Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. This has of course received a great amount of attention, with innumerable commentaries having been written by many scores of protagonists and moderators around the world. Only a brief and highly simplified summary of these many conversations can be attempted here, within our limited objective of illustrating once more how it may be possible for critical discussion to be seen to proceed freely and yet objectively in economics. In the previous chapter we were fortunate to have had an actual conversation to consider; here our method shall have to be one of constructing a model of a conversation. In honour of Plato, we might name our conversants Athenian and Stranger.

ATHENIAN Tell me, have you perhaps been following the discussions among macroeconomists? I shall be interested to know what you take their present state to be.

STRANGER Indeed I have, though of course it is not possible or worthwhile to follow all of what has been said. But yes I have followed some of it, and certainly we can make it a topic of conversation.

ATHENIAN Please begin.

STRANGER Very well. Shall we do so in ‘36 with the publication of Keynes’s book? Rightly or wrongly, this must be considered a watershed in the history of modern economics, if only because most economists since have had either to admit its arguments in some measure or define and explain their disagreement. You’ll remember at one time it was said by many that Keynes had fathered a revolution in economic science.

ATHENIAN Except Chicago and the Austrians.

STRANGER Quite so. Now more recently a renewal of neoclassical thought has been under way, and many doubts have been raised about the keynesian consensus, so much so that some of the main questions of the thirties seem in modern form to continue to be at issue today.

ATHENIAN The more things change, the more they stay the same! But when you say Keynes has been a central figure, I take it you mean only that he has been among the most influential and most discussed and nothing more. It is not to preclude judgement on the merits of his book, which is itself of very uneven clarity. Besides there has been too much idolatry and hagiography.

STRANGER Yes, there is so often a rush to belief and worship. There may have been less if Keynes had survived longer. Yet I should say the broad aim of the work is not hard to see. Keynes himself clearly believes that he is starting a revolution — going so far as to suggest a comparison with contemporary physics. The first chapter says the book aims to provide a “general” theory, which will explain the traditional model as a “limiting” case. The second chapter says the theory of value has been hitherto concerned with the allocation of given resources between competing ends; Keynes is going to explain how the actual level of employment comes to be what it is.

ATHENIAN And so begs the question?

STRANGER Or does traditional theory? That seems to be at the heart of it.

ATHENIAN Go on.

STRANGER The theory will be of the short run in Marshall’s sense of taking capital as a fixed factor. Traditional theory is said to postulate about the labour market (i) that the real wage equals the marginal product of labour, so there is an assumption of profit maximization by competitive producers giving rise to a short run demand curve for labour; and (ii) that the utility of the wage at a given level of employment equals the marginal disutility of that amount of employment; i.e., the real wage is just sufficient to induce the volume of labour which is actually forthcoming. So it can account for unemployment due to temporary miscalculations, or intermittent demand, or the refusal or inability of labour to accept a job at a given wage due to legislation or social practices or collective bargaining or obstinacy, or merely a rational choice of leisure — i.e., it can account for frictional and voluntary unemployment but not for what Keynes wants to call involuntary unemployment. What it can suggest is either such things as improvements in foresight, information, organization and productivity, or a lowering of the real wage. But Keynes’s critique will not have to do with such causes of the contemporary unemployment; instead the population is said to be seldom “doing as much work as it would like to do on the basis of the current wage…. More labour would, as a rule, be forthcoming at the existing money wage if it were demanded.” But it is not being demanded, and it is not being demanded because there has been a shortfall of “effective demand”. That is why there is as much unemployment as there is.

ATHENIAN Or so Keynes claims. And he would take it the neoclassical view would be that it must be the real wage is too high; it is only because the real wage has not fallen by enough that unemployment continues.

STRANGER Right. To which there are two observations. The first has to do with the actual attitude of workers towards the money wage and the real wage respectively. The traditional supply function of labour is a function of the latter; Keynes claims that at least within a certain range it must be workers are concerned more with the former.

ATHENIAN How so?

STRANGER By the interesting and perhaps plausible claim that workers are found to withdraw labour if the money wage falls but do not seem to do the same if the price level rises. A real wage reduction caused by a fall in the money wage and the same real wage reduction caused by an increase in prices seem to have different effects on labour supply. “Whether logical or illogical, experience shows that this is how labour in fact behaves.” And he cites U. S. data for ‘32 to say labour did not refuse reductions in the money wage nor did the physical productivity of labour fall yet the real wage fell and unemployment continued. “Labour is not more truculent in the depression than in the boom — far from it.”

ATHENIAN And the second observation?

STRANGER This may be of more interest. “Classical theory assumes that it is always open to labour to reduce its real wage by accepting a reduction in its money wage… [it] presumes that labour itself is in a position to decide the real wage for which it works…” Keynes does not find a traditional explanation why prices tend to follow wages, and suggests it could be because the price level is being supposed to be determined by the money supply according to the quantity theory. Keynes wants to dispute the proposition “that the general level of real wages is directly determined by the character of the wage bargain…. For there may be no method available to labour as a whole whereby…. [it] can reduce its real wage to a given figure by making revised money bargains with the entrepreneurs.” Hence he arrives at his central definition of involuntary unemployment: if the real wage falls marginally as a consequence of the price level rising with the money wage constant, and there is greater employment demanded and supplied in consequence, the initial state was one of involuntary unemployment.

ATHENIAN You are saying then that Keynes’s intent is to establish the existence of involuntary unemployment?

STRANGER At least a major part of the intent yes. To make the concept meaningful, to argue that it refers to a logical possibility, and also that much of the actual unemployment of the time may be falling under it, and is a result of lack of “effective demand”.

ATHENIAN The neoclassicals have been said to be cavalier about fluctuations in economic activity, when in fact Wicksell and Marshall and Thornton, let alone Hawtrey or Hayek as Keynes’s own critics, certainly had profound enough theories of the cycle. Before we go further, I think we should remind ourselves of what they actually said.

STRANGER Very well.

ATHENIAN Would you agree that can be summarized, then as now, as the quantity theory of money married to the theory of general equilibrium?

STRANGER Though it may be better to speak of divorce perhaps rather than marriage, in view of the dichotomy.

ATHENIAN From Smith to Mill, political economists broadly agree the role of government should extend and be restricted to such activities as defence, civil protection, the rule of law, the provision of public goods, education, the encouragement of competition, and so on. The traditional agenda does not as a rule include direct activity to restrain or otherwise change the natural course of trade, production, or consumption, and certainly no theory of what today is called macroeconomic policy. Underlying it is a broad belief that the competitive pursuit of private welfare within the necessary and minimal framework of the institutions of government, will result in tolerable social outcomes, and any further activity may be counterproductive. The State is after all endogenous to the economy, without any resources to its own name.

STRANGER The minimal state, though not so minimal perhaps as we sometimes think.

ATHENIAN The main function of money is seen to be that of facilitating real transactions. Hence the main component of the demand for money is the transactions demand, and the broad objective of monetary policy is the maintenance of the stability of the price of money. But this is recognized to be something elusive in practice, and fluctuations in economic activity are expected to occur in spite of the best intentions of the monetary authorities.

STRANGER How so?

ATHENIAN Well we might imagine two or three distinct but related markets: one for real investment and savings determined by intertemporal preferences, resources, and technologies; one a market for investment and savings defined in terms of money; one a short term credit market. The market for real investment and savings is, as it were, unobservable to the naked eye. Yet it drives the second and third markets for nominal savings and investment in which we actually participate. Monetary equilibrium requires the observable money rates of interest to equal the unobservable real rate of return on the market for physical capital. In particular, the real or natural rate of interest determined in the equilibrium of the first market is not, and perhaps ultimately cannot be, affected by nominal or monetary disturbances in the second or third markets.

STRANGER Why call it “natural”?

ATHENIAN In the sense it is a function of the real data of intertemporal preferences, resources, and technologies being what they are. If these data changed it should be expected to change too. But given these data, it would be the rate at which intertemporal constrained maximizations by individual agents resulted in planned present consumption equaling planned present production at the same time as planned future consumption equaled planned future production.

STRANGER In other words, real planned savings equal real planned investment.

ATHENIAN Exactly. It is the real interest rate, or rather the whole structure of own-rates and cross-rates at various terms, which is the key price signal for macroeconomic equilibrium.

STRANGER “Natural” seems to me to carry a physiocratic connotation. A better nomenclature would replace it with something else — perhaps “equilibrium real rate” or just “walrasian” rate.

ATHENIAN Very well, though I for one do not bias myself against the physiocrats! Now consider how a simple business cycle might occur on wicksellian lines. From a position of full real and monetary equilibrium, an expansion of credit has its first effect on the banks, increasing reserves and inducing more lending for reserve/deposit ratios to be restored, and so lowering the loan rate. But customers are only able to perceive a lowering of this nominal rate of interest and cannot know the equilibrium real rate has not changed. As far as households know, the relative price of present consumption has fallen and there is an incentive for greater consumption and lesser savings. As far as businesses know, the relative price of the future good has risen, and there is an incentive for greater investment. Inventories are run down, and markets for both consumer goods and capital goods are stimulated and show signs of excess demand. But if there was a walrasian equilibrium initially, then the economy will now show signs of inflation; with a gold standard, there would be increased demand for imports and an external drain of reserves, and even perhaps an internal drain if there was a panic and a run on the banks. The loan rate will have to rise once more to reign in reserves, but if the rate is now raised too high relative to the still unchanged real rate, there would be the makings of a recession.

STRANGER Your point being that economists before Keynes had recognized the decentralized economy may be fluctuating continually.

ATHENIAN Surely they had done so quite fully. A first set of causes such as wars, disasters, discoveries and migrations would change the real data of the economy, while a second set would be monetary disturbances like the failure of the authorities to adequately follow the dictates of the real data of the economy, i.e., failure to observe the equilibrium real rate of interest. It may even be intrinsic to the problem that they must fail in the attempt to observe, let aside compute, the equilibrium real rate warranted at a given time by the structure of the real data.

STRANGER Hence the conclusion that they cannot hope to do better than establish a climate of monetary and fiscal stability, such as by declaring a long term policy and staying with it.

ATHENIAN Exactly. Private economic agents already face endemic uncertainty with respect to changes in the real data, and must be assumed to not want more added by government policy. You appear to have seen my point nicely.

STRANGER Very well. But you have jumped ahead as this kind of a conclusion sounds very modern to me. You made me stop all the way back at Keynes’s notion of effective demand!

ATHENIAN As I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

STRANGER Let us go back a little. I think we may be able to rejoin our initial route at a point which may bring us close to where we seem to have come by the route you have taken. Specifically suppose we go back to the question of the money wage and the real wage, and of the real wage being “too high”.

ATHENIAN That has been interpreted a number of ways, has it not?

STRANGER Yes it has. One would be to say Keynes was merely simple minded and assumed money illusion on the part of workers. Another would be to say Keynes assumed a short run context of fixed prices, so it would not make a difference whether labour happened to be concerned with changes in the real or the money wage. Yet a third would be to say Keynes, whether he realized it or not, had come upon a recondite truth about the sort of complex monetary economy in which we live — namely, that when transactions are quoted and made in a monetary economy, it may become difficult ipso facto for the walrasian equilibrium to be achieved. Even workers might fully recognize the real wage to be too high and be prepared to work more at a lower wage, but be unable to signal this willingness to potential employers.

ATHENIAN So involuntary unemployment becomes another sort of equilibrium outcome.

STRANGER Exactly. Not only of labour but of machines too, along with the unintended holding of inventories. It is as if firms would have sold what they had planned to if only workers had the income to buy it, which they would have done if only they had been able to sell as much labour they had planned to, which they would have done if only there had been an effective demand for it, which there would have been if firms had not cut back on production because they found themselves unable to sell what they had planned to sell. A kind of vicious circle, due to pessimistic and self-fulfilling expectations all around.

ATHENIAN An unhappy solution to a non-cooperative game you might say.

STRANGER Quite so. Keynes does not deny there may be a monetary route out of the impasse. A wage deflation would eventually lead to price deflation, raising the real value of money holdings, so via liquidity preference lead to an increased demand for bonds, raising their price and lowering money interest rates, which through the investment function would lead eventually to increased effective demand. But the fiscal route may be more direct and quicker in its effect on expectations. Trying to deflate across the board in the face of what seem to be excess supplies of goods and labour might be counterproductive, causing unexpected transfers from debtors to creditors and precipitating bankruptcies. Instead: “Government investment will break the vicious circle. If you can do that for a couple of years, it will have the effect, if my diagnosis is right, of restoring business profits more nearly to normal, and if that can be achieved then private enterprise will be revived. I believe you have first of all to do something to restore profits and then rely on private enterprise to carry the thing along….”

ATHENIAN A shot in the arm for enterprise in the hope of breaking the pessimism. But Keynes was hardly alone in such thinking.

STRANGER Quite true.

ATHENIAN And he certainly seemed to treat the opinions of others without due respect, which is to say he may have exaggerated the significance of his own. Hinting that he was the Einstein of economics set an especially bad example. Only the other day one eminence was comparing himself to Newton, and another was calling his friend Shakespeare. It will be Joyce and Pasternak next!

STRANGER Flattery and nepotism are common weaknesses, my friend. Like the rush to belief and worship.

ATHENIAN Besides you would have to assume the government to be outside the game, and only so being able to see the problem which private agents could not from inside the game. That may be too large an assumption, don’t you think?

STRANGER Yes it may. Yet it seems to me pump-priming was a possible solution being offered to a temporary problem. Many of the controversies may have come about because it became institutionalized, because discretionary fiscal policy became a permanent part of the government agenda.

ATHENIAN And a more direct route out was available too, was it not? With wealth placed in the consumption function directly, a deflation would increase the real value and affect effective demand directly. We would not have to wait for the roundabout effects through so-called liquidity preference.

STRANGER Which in a way brings us back to a central pillar of traditional theory: with given real data and given velocity of circulation, desired holding of real money balances will roughly be constant. In particular the demand for real money balances should not be seen as a function of the interest rate.

ATHENIAN The real rate or the monetary rate?

STRANGER For neoclassicals certainly the real; Keynes does not seem clear.

ATHENIAN There may lie a problem.

STRANGER The title of the book says “Employment, Interest, and Money”. No question employment is real and money is money — interest is the bridge. If you ask me to bet I would say Keynes’s agents make real responses to signals expressed as they must be in a large economy in monetary terms.

ATHENIAN Perhaps we ought to move on. Tell me, if you think Keynes’s book rightly or wrongly ranks as the most influential document of the last fifty years, would you agree it is Friedman’s address on the role of monetary policy which must rank second to it if not on a par with it?

STRANGER Certainly there can be few competitors.

ATHENIAN Well then, it appears to me the net effect of Friedman’s critique has been a restoration of the wicksellian theory and a banishment of the keynesian theory.

STRANGER Friedman of course makes his approach via a critique of the Phillips’ Curve.

ATHENIAN Yes, but it is Wicksell whom he acknowledges in advancing the notion of a natural rate of unemployment, one which has been “ground out by the walrasian system of general equilibrium equations” — in other words, one which happens to be consistent with the structure of the real data of the economy at a particular time.

STRANGER Though again we may as well speak of walrasian instead of natural.

ATHENIAN A monetary policy which tried to peg unemployment at lower than such a rate (if such a rate could be determined, which it cannot) is likely to be counterproductive. The initial effect of an expansionary policy on a walrasian equilibrium may be to increase real output. Workers assume the increase to reflect an increase in the unobservable real demand for their services, and hence they expect a higher real wage. Businesses see the same and assume it to reflect an increase in the unobservable real demand for their goods. But given there was no real excess demand in the first place for either labour or goods, the effect outside anything but the short run will be a return to the initial structure of real wages, and the temporary decline in unemployment is reversed to the walrasian rate at higher prices. If the government tries to maintain unemployment at less than the walrasian rate, it will have to concede — indeed it will have caused — accelerating inflation without any real fall in unemployment.

STRANGER And vice versa perhaps, so there would be a kind of knife-edge.

ATHENIAN Now your remark about Friedman making his approach via the Phillips Curve seems to me interesting. We may have been too hasty to make a comparison with the debate in the thirties. For the world suffers a very real and severe shock between Keynes’s book and the keynesian consensus, which is the Second World War itself.

STRANGER I am not sure I follow.

ATHENIAN Well think of the consensus afterwards on the need for macroeconomic policy — it is actually Tinbergen’s notion of a “policy-maker” which is married to what seems to be Phillips’s finding of a trade-off between inflation and unemployment. It becomes the role of the macroeconomist to advise the politician on how to minimize social disutility from inflation and unemployment subject to the Phillips Curve. Macroeconomics becomes a so-called “policy science”. Give your expert economist your social utility function, and he will tell you where to slide to on your Phillips Curve.

STRANGER The available instruments being money supply and tax rates. That is what I meant in saying Keynes’s idea became institutionalized.

ATHENIAN It seems to me this consensus is born out of the War.

STRANGER How so?

ATHENIAN Well just think of the structural problems of the time: demobilization of large armies, reconstruction, all the displaced peoples, and so on. What are democratic governments to do? Say to their voters, right, thank you very much, now could you please go home quietly? What could have been expected except an Employment Act? Governments were going to help their returning citizens find work, or at least it would have seemed irresponsible if they had not said they were going to.

STRANGER You are saying then that Friedman may have been arguing against a new orthodoxy, grown out of what might have been a sensible idea.

ATHENIAN Exactly. The world is a very different place now than in 1945, in ‘45 than in ‘33, in ‘33 than in 1914. Real shocks every time. It may be a grave mistake for us to look for a unique and universal theory which is supposed to explain all particular circumstances, all of history.

STRANGER Reminds me of the historical school.

ATHENIAN Why not? Again I hold no prejudice against them! Anyhow, consider that Lucas and others have followed Friedman to argue it is a mistake to formulate the problem as Tinbergen had done, with unemployment as a target in a social utility function along with inflation. If it ought to be assumed that people will not continually make the same mistakes in predicting policy, then a systematic employment policy is going to be discovered quickly enough and rendered either ineffective or counterproductive. This idea too has its origins in Wicksell. Examining an opinion that inflation might stimulate enterprise and free debtors, Wicksell says: “It need only be said that if this fall in the value of money is the result of our own deliberate policy, or indeed can be anticipated and foreseen, then these supposed beneficial effects will never occur, since the approaching rise in prices will be taken into account in all transactions by reasonably intelligent people.”

STRANGER Wicksell said that?

ATHENIAN Precisely that.

STRANGER It does sound very modern.

ATHENIAN Now Lucas speaks of how the advice that economists give should be limited only to “the well understood and empirically substantiated propositions of monetary economics, discouragingly modest as these may be.” What can we take him to mean? It seems to me he is sharing Friedman’s scepticism of the possibilities which had been claimed for macroeconomics by the keynesian consensus. And that surely has been a healthy scepticism, befitting good economists.

STRANGER As I said, there is so often a rush to belief.

ATHENIAN Which is really disastrous when combined with the craving for power.

STRANGER But the question remains, does it not, as to which propositions of monetary economics are to be considered “well understood and empirically substantiated”. I cannot help think the propositions taken to be well understood and empirically substantiated in Chicago may be very different from those taken to be well understood and empirically substantiated in Cambridge, or for that matter, those in the U. S. from those in Europe.

ATHENIAN I don’t see any difficulty in this. For first, it would have been granted there are propositions in economics which can be well understood and empirically substantiated. And that must be counted as progress! For something cannot be well understood if it cannot be understood at all, and where there is the possibility of understanding there must be the possibility of objective knowledge as well. And second, why should we not say the most appropriate task of economic theory or analytical economics is simply one of clarification and elucidation of the conceptual basis of economic thinking and expression? All theory ultimately is, or ought to be, “Critique of Language”. When we are faced with a particular and concrete problematic situation, the theorist is to whom we turn for conceptual guidance and criticism. If instead you take the role of the theorist to be one of searching the universe for grand and general and absolute and abstract truths, which need to be discovered before we can say anything about some concrete set of particulars, then it seems to me you will be either struck dumb by a total and debilitating scepticism or become very shrill in your dogmatism or alternate wildly between the two. To me it seems unimportant ultimately to whose flag one shows allegiance, or indeed that allegiance to any flag must be shown.

STRANGER It seems again I will not disagree. But you have sketched the critique of Friedman and Lucas and indeed the ghost of Wicksell addressed to the dogmas of the keynesian orthodoxy. And I have agreed with you this has been a healthy criticism of the sort we should expect economists to provide. But there has been serious question too of the framework used by Friedman and Lucas, hasn’t there? I am thinking especially of Tobin and Hahn.

ATHENIAN Tobin has done much to add clear and reasonable thinking about Keynes — his suggestion that a certain amount of inflation may be the only way to bring down real wages towards their walrasian rates in complex monetary economics is especially interesting; it shows how wide the common ground can be upon which the debate may occur. But you will have to tell me what Hahn’s criticisms have been. I have always found them too abstract and too caustic.

STRANGER That they tend to be, but don’t let that deter you. As I see it, Hahn argues somewhat as follows. We should grant Friedman and Lucas two important points: first, the government is itself a large economic agent whose actions and announced plans enter the calculations of private agents; secondly, erratic changes in monetary policy away from a steady k% rule may have perverse effects “by confusing signals of relative scarcity with those that arose from the monetary policy”. Also, we may accept that the assumptions sufficient for a full walrasian equilibrium with rational expectations suffice for the absence of any persistent involuntary unemployment by Keynes’s definition. But Hahn would say this may not be the relevant empirical description.

ATHENIAN In what way?

STRANGER Well for one thing the pricing axiom or the recontracting assumption of stability theory remains unexplained. It is possible traders will face quantity constraints, and this often seems so in markets for labour and credit. We may simply find prices not moving in the direction of excess demand even when a quantity constraint happens to be binding. The structure of wages may be “neither fixed, nor arbritrary, nor inflexible; it is what it is because given conjectures, no agent finds it advantageous to change it.” Moreover, it may not be plausible to suppose there will be convergence after arbitrary displacements back towards a stable equilibrium, because the conditions for stability are very stringent and uniqueness of equilibrium may also need to be postulated. Furthermore, it may be quite unsatisfactory to treat money in models which are isomorphic to the Arrow-Debreu model, because in such a world there is no logical use for money, so there must be some essential features of reality which have failed to be features of the model.

ATHENIAN You don’t think Patinkin’s integration was adequate?

STRANGER For many practical purposes perhaps, but certainly not to full logical satisfaction. If you put real money balances into the utility function and treat money just about like any other good, you have to be prepared to accept a possible equilibrium in which the price of money is zero. Lastly, if there are internal debts denominated in money as there are in fact, you may not assume equiproportional changes in all prices will not have real effects, unless you are prepared to assume away redistributions between creditors and debtors, which you can do only under another assumption that all households have parallel and linear Engel curves through the origin. Hahn’s line of argument is admittedly abstract, but you will have to admit it raises some fundamental questions.

ATHENIAN Another example we might say of the healthy scepticism of the theorist. It seems my turn to agree with you. But we can imagine replies too can we not?

STRANGER What do you have in mind?

ATHENIAN Well to argue there can be unemployment which is involuntary is not to have argued that an employment policy can be expected to remove it. This seems a premise and conclusion too frequently confounded by both keynesians and their critics, with disastrous consequences. Then, Buchanan would argue that a more thorough characterization needs to be given of the making of government policy, especially when it is proposed to supplant the market outcome. Policies are after all proposed, enacted, and put into effect by actual people — all of whom may need to be assumed to be pursuing private rewards as well in the course of their public duties. The relevant description for the economist needs to be one including this further fact that actual proposals of public policy can embody the private interests of the proposers too.

STRANGER Making it that much more difficult to determine what is in the public interest in a given case.

ATHENIAN Exactly. And so reinforcing the case for predictability and an orderliness in the framework of government.

STRANGER But we have been talking now for quite long enough my friend. I seem to feel a fear too that we have not gained anything at all in our discussions.

ATHENIAN Don’t be so pessimistic! Surely the point of reconstructing such conversations as we have done is not to hold absolutely to the matters raised in them. You and I after all have been making summary and highly simplified and unauthorized interpretations. I take the point of it to have been clarifying our thoughts, and perhaps to show ourselves how discussion can proceed between economists of different schools of thought. Arguments might come to a halt for any of a number of reasons, but they needn’t be supposed to have any logical or necessary end. Too often we let people retreat into different dogmatic positions, fostering the belief that each is starting from some set of absolute axioms ultimately irreconcilable with those of the other. We may need to keep insisting instead that the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is an open-ended activity with potentially indefinite limits. It yields conclusive results but has no absolute end. You or I might call a halt and retire from it, but that will not mean it cannot or will not continue without us.

STRANGER Perhaps so. But you are younger than I, and I have become tired by all these thrusts and parries. Besides, there has been the enjoyment of conversation itself.”

October 1929? Not! by Subroto Roy / First published in Business Standard September 18, 2008

“Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy protection, Merrill Lynch taken over by Bank of America, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and now AIG being nationalised by the US Government, Bear Stearns getting a government bailout, many thousands of low-quality loans going bad … Does it all add up to an American financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 comparable to that in the autumn of 1929? Even Alan Greenspan himself has gone on record on TV saying it might.

But there are overriding differences. Most important, the American economy and the world economy are both incomparably larger today in the value of their capital stock, and there has also been enormous technological progress over eight decades. Accordingly, it would take a much vaster event than the present turbulence — say, something like an exchange of multiple nuclear warheads with Russia causing Manhattan and the City of London to be destroyed — before there was a return to something comparable to the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression that followed.

Besides, the roots of the crises are different. What happened back then? In 1922, the Genoa Currency Conference wanted to correct the main defect of the pre-1914 gold standard, which was freezing the price of gold while failing to stabilise the purchasing power of money. From 1922 until about 1927, Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York adopted price-stabilisation as the new American policy-objective. Britain was off the gold standard and the USA remained on it. The USA, as a major creditor nation, saw massive gold inflows which, by traditional gold standard principles, would have caused a massive inflation. Governor Strong invented the process of “sterilisation” of those gold inflows instead and thwarted the rise in domestic dollar prices of goods and services.

Strong’s death in 1928 threw the Federal Reserve System into conflict and intellectual confusion. Dollar stabilisation ended as a policy. Surplus bank money was created on the release of gold that had been previously sterilised.

The traditional balance between bulls and bears in the stock-market was upset. Normally, every seller of stock is a bear and every buyer a bull. Now, amateur investors appeared as bulls attracted by the sudden stock price rises, while bears, who sold securities, failed to place their money into deposit and were instead lured into lending it as call money to brokerages who then fuelled these speculative bulls. As of October 22, 1929 about $4 billion was the extent of such speculative lending when Chase National Bank’s customers called in their money.

Chase National had to follow their instructions, as did other New York banks. New York’s Stock Exchange could hardly respond to a demand for $4 billion at a short notice and collapsed. Within a year, production had fallen by 26 per cent, prices by 14 per cent, personal income by 14 per cent, and the Greatest Depression of recorded history was in progress — involuntary unemployment levels in America reaching 25 per cent.

That is not, by any reading, what we have today. Yes, there has been plenty of bad lending, plenty of duping shareholders and workers and plenty of excessive managerial payoffs. It will all take a large toll, and affect markets across the world.

But it will be a toll relative to our plush comfortable modern standards, not those of 1929-1933. In fact, modern decisionmakers have the obvious advantage that they can look back at history and know what is not to be done. The US and the world economy are resilient enough to ride over even the extra uncertainty arising from the ongoing presidential campaign, and then some.”

III

America’s divided economists by Subroto Roy First published in Business Standard October 26, 2008

“Future doctoral theses about the Great Tremor of 2008 will ask how it was that the Fed chief, who was an academic economist, came to back so wholeheartedly the proposals of the investment banker heading the US Treasury. If Herbert Hoover and FDR in the 1930s started something called fiscal policy for the first time, George W Bush’s lameduck year has marked the total subjugation of monetary policy.

In his 1945 classic, History of Banking Theory, the University of Chicago’s Lloyd Mints said: “No reorganisation of the Federal Reserve System, while preserving its independence from the Treasury, can offer a satisfactory agency for the implementation of monetary policy. The Reserve banks and their branches should be made agencies of the Treasury and all monetary powers delegated by Congress should be given to the Secretary of the Treasury…. It is not at all certain that Treasury control of the stock of money would always be reasonable… but Treasury influence cannot be excluded by the creation of a speciously independent monetary agency that cannot have adequate powers for the performance of its task…” Years later, Milton Friedman himself took a similar position suggesting legislation “to end the independence of the Fed by converting it into a bureau of the Treasury Department…”(see, for example, Essence of Friedman, p 416).

Ben Bernanke’s Fed has now ended any pretence of the monetary policy’s independence from the whims and exigencies of executive power. Yet Dr Bernanke’s fellow academic economists have been unanimous in advising caution, patience and more information and reflection upon the facts. The famous letter of 122 economists to the US Congress was a rare statement of sense and practical wisdom. It agreed the situation was difficult and needed bold action. But it said the Paulson-Bernanke plan was an unfair “subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.”

Besides, the plan was unclear and too far-reaching. “Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards…. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.”

The House’s initial bipartisan “backbench revolt” against “The Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act of 2008” (ESSA) followed this academic argument and rejected the Bernanke Fed’s advice. Is there an “emergency”, and if so what is its precise nature? Is this “economic stabilisation”, and if so, how is it going to work? The onus has been on Dr Bernanke and his staff to argue both, not merely to assert them. Even if the House “held its nose” and passed the measure for now, the American electorate is angry and it is anybody’s guess how a new President and Congress will alter all this in a few months.

Several academic economists have argued for specific price-stabilisation of the housing market being the keystone of any large, expensive and risky government intervention. (John McCain has also placed this in the political discussion now.) Roughly speaking, the housing supply-curve has shifted so far to the right that collapsed housing prices need to be dragged back upward by force. Columbia Business School economists Glenn Hubbard and Chris Mayer, both former Bush Administration officials, have proposed allowing “all residential mortgages on primary residences to be refinanced into 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 5.25 per cent…. close to where mortgage rates would be today with normally functioning mortgage markets….Lower interest rates will mean higher overall house prices…” Yale’s Jonathan Koppell and William Goetzmann have argued very similarly the Treasury “could offer to refinance all mortgages issued in the past five years with a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage at 6 per cent. No credit scores, no questions asked; just pay off the principal of the existing mortgage with a government check. If monthly payments are still too high, homeowners could reduce their indebtedness in exchange for a share of the future price appreciation of the house. That is, the government would take an ownership interest in the house just as it would take an ownership interest in the financial institutions that would be bailed out under the Treasury’s plan.”

Beyond the short run, the US may play the demographic card by inviting in a few million new immigrants (if nativist feelings hostile to the outsider or newcomer can be controlled, especially in employment). Bad mortgages and foreclosures would vanish as people from around the world who long to live in America buy up all those empty houses and apartments, even in the most desolate or dismal locations. If the US’s housing supply curve has moved so far to the right that the equilibrium price has gone to near zero, the surest way to raise the equilibrium price would be by causing a new wave of immigration leading to a new demand curve arising at a higher level.

Such proposals seek to address the problem at its source. They might have been expected from the Fed’s economists. Instead, ESSA speaks of massive government purchase and control of bad assets “downriver”, without any attempt to face the problem at its source. This makes it merely wishful to think such assets can be sold for a profit at a later date so taxpayers will eventually gain. It is as likely as not the bad assets remain bad assets.

Indeed the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan has argued there is a financial crisis involving the banking sector but not an economic one: “We’re not entering a second Great Depression.” The marginal product of capital remains high and increasing “far above the historical average. The third-quarter earnings reports from some companies already suggest that America’s non-financial companies are still making plenty of money…. So, if you are not employed by the financial industry (94 per cent of you are not), don’t worry. The current unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent is not alarming, and we should reconsider whether it is worth it to spend $700 billion to bring it down to 5.9 per cent.”

Dr Bernanke has been a close student of A Monetary History of the United States in which Milton Friedman and Anna J Schwartz argued that the Fed inadvertently worsened the Great Contraction of 1929-1933 by not responding to Congress. Let not future historians find that the Fed, at the behest of the Treasury Secretary, worsened the Great Tremor of 2008 by bamboozling Congress into hasty action.”

Would not a few million new immigrants solve America’s mortgage crisis?
October 10, 2008 — drsubrotoroy | Edit

America was at its best when it was open to mass immigration, and America is at its worst when it treats immigrants with racism and worse (for seeming “uppity”).

All those bad mortgages and foreclosures could vanish within a year or two by playing the demographic card and inviting in a few million new immigrants into the United States. They would pour in from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, South America, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Israel, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and yes, Pakistan too, and more. They would happily buy up all those empty houses and apartments, even in all those desolate dismal locations. If the USA’s housing supply curve has moved so far to the right that the equilibrium price has gone to near zero, the surest way to raise the equilibrium price would be by causing a new wave of immigration leading to a new demand curve arising at a higher level. But yes, nativist feelings of racism towards the outsider or the newcomer would have to be controlled especially in employment — racists after all are often rather “sub-prime” themselves and hence unable to accept characters who may be “prime” or at least less “sub-prime” from foreign immigrant communities. Restoring a worldwide idea of an American dream fuelled by mass immigration may be the surest way for the American economy to restore itself.

122 Sensible American economists

September 26, 2008 — drsubrotoroy | Edit

“$700 billion comes to more than, uhhhm, $6,000 per income taxpayer in the USA.

I was glad to see the sensible letter of 122 American economists to US legislators regarding the Paulson-Bernanke plan to address America’s financial crisis.

Somehow, I have an inkling that foreign central banks have been left holding more bad US debt than might be remembered — which would explain the embarrassment of Messrs Paulson and Bernanke vis-a-vis their foreign counterparts… Dollar depreciation and an American inflation seem to be inevitable over the next several years.”

Posted in America's housing market, America's impatience, America's mortgage crisis, American academia, American democracy, American financial crises, American politics, Anna Schwartz, Benjamin Strong, Corporate Finance, Corporate fraud, Corporate Governance, Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Economic Theory of Interest, Economic Theory of Value, Economics of Exchange Rates, Economics of housing markets, Economics of Public Finance, Economics of real estate valuation, Economics of Unemployment, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Banks, Financial markets, Frank Hahn, Gold standard, Government Budget Constraint, James M Buchanan, John Maynard Keynes, John Wisdom, Macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, Monetary Theory, Money and banking, New York Stock Exchange, Obama Administration, October 1929 New York Stock Market Crash, Oliver Cromwell, Public Choice/Public Finance, US economy, US in World Trade, US Monetary and Fiscal Policy, US protectionism. Leave a Comment »

And now for the Great Satyam Whitewash/CoverUp/Public Subsidy! The wrong Minister appoints the wrong new Board who, probably, will choose the wrong policy

January 12, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

The old Satyam, call it Satyam-I, is dead. It was a “Limited Liability” company which means its ordinary shareholders can walk away with zero value and not be personally liable to pay the creditors and preferred shareholders (who are and ought to be considered its new owners). “Satyam” as a brand name, a logo and a trademark might be salvageable after a reconstitution in due course.

Besides physical plant, fixed assets and other similar tangible things, the main assets of Satyam-I consist of “works-in-progress”, namely all the existing ongoing contracts around the world. What should happen is that all these contracts — while maintaining client confidentiality (e.g. by using generic terminology) — should be auctioned off to other similar IT companies, big or small.

Satyam-I’s existing technical staff associated with these ongoing contracts can go with them to the new buyers (with the new buyers negotiating individual wage contracts).

Alternatively, existing staff can offer to participate too in such auctions themselves as buyers and use their personal savings to buy off old Satyam contracts.

All the proceeds from such auctions should go to a trust fund that Satyam-I’s liquidator should use to pay off the creditors, or at least come to an agreement with creditors about a future structure of payments. If assets have been siphoned off or misused or embezzled by the previous owners and management, then these need to be pursued and located and retrieved to the extent possible. (Some reports say there has been some transmutation into real estate and some transfers abroad).

If all this happened, there might be a Satyam-II or New Satyam some years down the road which can use the same brand-name and logo and trademark comfortably again.

But not much of this seems likely to happen. The best thing this Minister could have done was to have turned in his papers saying that the problem was beyond his intellectual capacity as he had never done a course in Corporate Finance. Instead he has appointed three persons whom he considers “eminent”. One has been involved with the software lobby and another with the real estate business (and associated with the idea of using India’s forex reserves for “infrastructure”, not realizing forex reserves are hardly like tax revenues). As things stand presently, this Board, themselves unfamiliar with standard modern textbook Corporate Finance, and far too close to the previous Board, is unlikely to take the right decisions because such decisions will require more intellectual and moral effort than may be forthcoming.

Instead they will probably lobby hard for a vast public subsidy to be injected into the financial corpse that is Satyam-I, so that a zombie company can attempt to be resurrected (we in India have many such zombies walking around in the organised business sector).

The PM who is also now his own Finance Minister has, in his long career as a top economic bureaucrat and a politician, never met a public subsidy he did not like or approve of. So watch out for a billion or two dollars of public money in India injected into the corpse, adding to India’s vast and growing public debt. Parliament will hardly disapprove when the PM and his acolytes soon announce it in unison.

Ask yourself then how such a vast public subsidy can possibly benefit ordinary Indian people who live in, say, Imphal, Agartala, Ajmer, Lalitpur or Balasore, or even Guntur and Telengana. The answer is that it won’t — it will hurt them and their succeeding generations for decades. Such has been the pattern of economic-policy making in India whether under this political party or that; it is organised lobbies, especially organized business as represented on this new Board, that call the shots. The relatively few people who can convert Indian rupees into forex do so with impunity while the vast unknowing masses continue to use a currency damaged by waste, fraud and abuse.

Jail terms for the Rajus and their friends? Hmmmm. Perhaps the few weeks or months that are due to wealthy criminals.

Somebody in Delhi yesterday apparently told the visiting Cambridge Vice Chancellor that Kolkata “does not count”; to the contrary, it is New Delhi that remains entirely bankrupt intellectually and morally, and that bankruptcy will continue to be revealed in coping with Satyam’s bankruptcy.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Postcript: The above was written and published here before the new Board’s press-meet. Nothing the Board said has given reason to alter the opinion above. Rather, the Board seemed exceptionally dull in failing to see that once the new accountants have done their work, it seems likely if not inevitable that Satyam’s balance-sheet calls for “winding up” in the Indian term, i.e. declaring bankruptcy. The news that the Government of Inda would also likely subsidise Satyam with public resources also confirms the dismal state of economic policy-making described above. SR., 1830 hrs, Jan 12.

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2002-2010

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