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Jagdish Bhagwati is University Professor (Economics, Law, and International Affairs) at Columbia University and Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He has been economic policy adviser to Arthur Dunkel, director-general of GATT (1991-93), special adviser to the UN on globalization, and external adviser to the WTO.
I sometimes wonder that if the entire population of the country, including the opposition and their handful of supporters concede the 2019 election to the NDA today, they will stop trying to sell us these piles of horse manure whenever someone questions them about results. I’d be willing to make that compromise.
This is truly a brilliant analysis. The sad part is that most of the opposition parties will hardly be concerned about reading the line of logic laid out in this article and understanding it because the exercise of demonetization had been criticised so strongly by Mr Manmohan Singh in his speech in the Rajya Sabha. Among the things he mentioned was that the scheme would be a total failure in the short term and in the long run we will all be dead. This, coming from the Finance Minister said to be the father of liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991, ( in which he had quoted the words and thoughts of John Maynard Keynes) was enough for the Anand Sharmas and Surjewalas of the Congress party (whose knowledge of Economics is too superficial to be commented upon ) to perform their cameos in Parliament.
Jagdish mama, we love you… But please give up. The misery in the “hinterland” is real. The jobs are nonexistent. The hate attacks are real. The combination of overweening authority and incompetence is stifling.
All I can say is that Professor Dehejia, Bhagwati and Krishna dig deeper into the hole with this article. I will remind readers of this execrable piece talking about the demonetization boom http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/looking-back-at-demonetisation-the-concerns-of-its-legion-of-critics-have-all-been-proven-plain-wrong/. They said “Indeed, we were perhaps among a small minority of economists who had argued explicitly that, contrary to this emerging consensus, demonetisation could, paradoxically, be expansionary rather than contractionary..” No mea culpa for that.
Now, as per usual, they shift the goalposts. What is really disappointing is to see Professor Bhagwati, once a mighty hand against state excess, now arguing for it. I guess you become what you fight against in the end.