Unlike a lot of people, writing does not come to me naturally.  It has been a slow and difficult learning process, and I had to contend with massive writing project as I started the dissertation.  As it turned out, writing the dissertation was fun, but not always.  It took me an year and a half to write the dissertation after the fieldwork, and in the process, it helped me to know what other writers had gone through.  A lot of that advice came from the committee and from my peers at the University, and some of it came from webcasts on the art of writing.

These talks helped me reflect on writing: why I write, how to write, and what one goes through as a writer.  It helped me anticipate that I will have to re-write again and again, and that there will be days when I will get stuck staring at a blank page or a half-written paragraph.  It is not that these talks ensured that I did not get stuck, but it helped to know that it happens.  More  than anything else, they helped me remember that writing can be fun; something that a lot of us in the run to finish a long project forget.

Click on the list icon that looks like a stack of cards in the bottom to see the entire list of videos, or you can always visit my YouTube channel here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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In April 2001 People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) approached the Supreme Court of India arguing that the government has a duty to provide greater relief in the context of mass hunger. The litigation has now become the best known precedent on the right to food internationally. This paper reviews the litigation with a view to understand various strategies used by the litigants to create and enforce far-reaching entitlements in a near legal vacuum on the right to food. This is followed by a discussion on the lessons from this case for rights based approach to development at large.

Citation:  S. Vivek and Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis, “Rights Based Approach To Development: Lessons From The Right To Food Movement,” in Food Insecurity, Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure, Studies in Development Economics and Policy (Basingstoke: UK: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007).

Click here to download the article.

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Compared to most other states in India, Tamil Nadu is noted for widespread provision of education, primary health care, nutrition support, rural roads, electricity, water and other public services. These services are typically well planned and tend to work well. I examine what determines Tamil Nadu’s performance. I argue that widespread and decentralized collective action for public services plays a critical role in it but such collective action is a new phenomenon, dating back to the seventies. I also argue that normative challenges by major social movements, changing influences of various social groups and raising individual capabilities among common people played an instrumental role in enabling such collective action that ultimately had an impact on public services.

Click here to download the dissertation.

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Book: The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
Author: William Easterly

The Elusive Quest for Growth by William Easterly reviews various theories of growth and the consequent efforts by World Bank and IMF. As the title indicates he looks at how these approaches ‘failed’ and traces some reasons for their failure. The book is interspersed with live accounts of little cases (“intermezzo”) from the field to animate the discussion.

Useful review of evolving thinking in IMF and World Bank over 50 years

He starts by discussing why growth matters and offers a straightforward reason – “to help the poor”. The first chapter briefly traces some reviews of growth and its impact on poverty. This is followed by sections on “panaceas that failed” and the theme section “people respond to incentives” (see table of contents below for more details). Considering that the book is written by an insider (Easterly worked for the World Bank) the book offers interesting insights into the debates within the Bank and an episodic view of development thinking within the institution. It perhaps reflects the currently growing priority for getting institutions right to get the incentives right – a radical movement from ‘getting the prices right’ discourse. In the process the book offers a good insight into shifting thinking in these institutions for almost half a century.

Easterly criticizes the interventions of WB and IMF and claims that they have failed broadly. This is where the critical nature of the book stops. Underlying the book are narrow notions of “Good Policy” and a growth fundamentalism that gives no room for any measure that would deviate from the infamous Washington Consensus.

Growth and nothing else: how useful insights go awry

Needless to say, the book is focussed on ‘growth’ and the world view is presented by comparisons between ‘rich countries’ and ‘poor countries’. He uses this comparison to make an important point that growth often contributes to reduction in poverty and improvements in other standards of living (education, nutrition, health, etc.). What he misses to do though is to look at the wide array of patterns among poor and rich countries that are contributed by other measures. As Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze have argued on many occasions, policies focussed on human development need not always be inconsistent with concerns for growth. And growth very often happens without human development, specially when they are accompanied without any policies focussed on these issues. His world view based on rich/poor dichotomy is a significant weakness of the book.

Unquestionable “Good Policies”

There is an undercurrent of ‘good policy’ Vs. ‘bad policy’ through the book and much of the ‘good policy’ is what could be called the Washington consensus. He is rarely critical of the policy prescriptions and attributes their widespread failure to half-hearted implementation. I am not making an argument that Easterly sticks to Washington consensus (WC) in this book – that is far from true. But he does tend to give WC the hallowed ground and a part of the discussion is about getting the incentives right so that these get implemented.

Covers education, health, corruption and many other topics but with a narrow perspective

The book covers a wide ground by looking many pressing issues (population, human capital, health, etc.). Each of these chapters present interesting insights. May be given the limitations of discussing so many themes the discussion merely touches the surface of most topics. This would not be a shortcoming of the book but for the fact that what is discussed stays well within the framework of mainstream economics that is inadequate to understand phenomena. I have elaborated this in a separate post with reference to his cash for condoms chapter. The unfortunate tendency to ignore the rich context in which we live and make decisions persists through the book. My verdict about the book: useful insights, poor prescriptions.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE: THE QUEST
Why Growth Matters
To Help the Poor
Intermezzo: In Search of a River

THE PANACEAS THAT FAILED
Aid for Investment
Intermezzo: Parmila
Solow’s Surprise: Investment Is Not the Key to Growth
Intermezzo: Dry Cornstalks
Educated for What?
Intermezzo: Without a Refuge
Cash for Condoms?
Intermezzo: Tomb Paintings
The Loans That Were, the Growth That Wasn’t
Intermezzo: Roumeen’s Story
Forgive Us Our Debts
Intermezzo: Cardboard House

PEOPLE RESPOND TO INCENTIVES
Tales of Increasing Returns: Leaks, Matches, and Traps
Intermezzo: War and Memory
Creative Destruction: The Power of Technology
Intermezzo: Accident in Jamaica
Under an Evil Star
Intermezzo: Favela Life
Governments Can Kill Growth
Intermezzo: Florence and Veronica
Corruption and Growth
Intermezzo: Discrimination in Palanpur
Polarized Peoples
Intermezzo: Violent for Centuries
Conclusion: The View from Lahore

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Understanding popular theories and their challenges is crucial to understanding institutions. Notions such as Clash of civilisations by Huntington have a powerful influence on how foreign policies are shaped in the United States. In a memorable talk, Edward Said takes on Huntington’s thesis with a powerful critique.

Edward Said incisively analyzes Huntington’s notion that differences in culture between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ will lead to conflicts between the two civilizations. Arguing against monolithic understanding of cultures, Said makes a powerful case for multiculturalism. Edward Said is one of the most powerful speakers I have listened to off-late, and this dense lecture is worth every minute of it. The talk is approximately 40 minutes and is followed by questions. The video can be found here: Clash of civilisations by Edward Said

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Book: India: Development and participation
Authors: Amartya Sen & Jean Dreze

In my opinion this book is gold standard and is a must read for anyone intersted in development issues. Amartya Sen is distinguished for his ability to incorporate a wide variety of concerns including growth, inequalities, gender issues, power relations, etc. Dreze complements these abilities and also brings in significant field-level experience apart from rigorous research. India: Development and Participation combines a broad understanding of development with remarkable balance in dealing with various underlying issues.

The book starts with a chapter on understanding development as freedom, which lays the foundation for analysis that follows. Subsequently the authors go on to analyze in great detail issues such as education, gender, democratic participation, nuclear issues, health, population, etc. Each chapter in the book is a pure gem that synthesizes the best of debates on these issues. In doing this the authors go way beyond conventional preoccupations of development economics such as growth, capital accumulation, trade, etc. Further the authors are firmly rooted in India’s development issues and so they draw a lot of lessons for India from India.

The underlying message of the book is the importance of public action to secure basic entitlements of poeple. They look at the role of colective action, media, government programmes and other institutions in development and make a persuasive case for promoting education, development and other “freedoms” that enable people to lead a creative and fulfiling life. The book also gives tremendous importance to gender issues. With sound conceptual argument and clear presentation of facts the authors make a persuasive case for gender equality as an end in itself and as a crucial tool to further development.

The footnotes and statistical appendix are elaborate (large enough to be booklets by themselves) and cover a large ground on each of these issues. For someone looking for a book on India’s development, this book offers a fantastic introduction. The ability of the authors to engage with different streams of debate enables the reader to understand the debates in richer and fuller perspective. Both Sen and Dreze are excellent writers making arcane issues of development come alive.

While I fully subscribe the views above, please bear in mind that one of the authors is my former teacher and so I have reasons to be biased

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Critique of ‘unwanted babies thesis’

The key theme of The elusive quest for growth is ‘people respond to incentives’. This is a statement that will find broad agreement – but the devil is in the details. In a chapter titled Cash for Condoms? Easterly discusses efforts by World Bank to contain population growth in various countries. He criticises the ‘cash for condoms’ programme by arguing that the is assumes ‘unwanted babies’ that people could not prevent since they did not have access to condoms. He trashes this argument saying condoms cost much less than babies do – and people have the incentive to choose condoms over babies if babies were ‘unwanted’. The fact that poor people go for babies is because it is profitable for them to do so in part because their low incomes mean they value their work less and can choose to do parenting and in part because they prefer the extensive earnings from many children than investing heavily on a few. Based on this he argues that ‘development [read growth] is the best contraceptive’ and thus reverts to the argument for ‘good policy’. While the insights above are broadly agreeable, understanding people’s choices solely with these trivialises the complex social, cultural, political and economic factors that govern decision making about having children.

Some states in India have achieved Total Fertility Rate (TFR) below the replacement rate. These are by no means the richest states in the country, and the poor in these states are very much a part of this demographic transition. Studies that look at this phenomenon argue that this was achieved with women’s empowerment (that enabled them to make choices about having children), literacy & information, access to reliable health facilities to exercise contraceptive choices, among other things. These are concerns that cannot be derived from an incentive approach.

Can all incentives be deduced from macroeconomic parameters?

That takes me to my main critique of Easterly’s work. One could argue that women have less incentive to choose contraception if they fear a social backlash or if health systems are ‘far away’ and costly, and thus internalise the above arguments into the incentive framework. All we are saying by people respond to incentives is that people take meaningful actions based on their self-interest within the social context in which they live. Our understanding of their actions depends entirely on how rich our understanding of the social context is, something that is sorely lacking in The Elusive Quest for Growth. As a result some of the analysis he presents is rather distorted. For example, he attributes the growth in population that accompanied the industrial revolution to the changing incentives for people to have babies: first it paid to have more babies but as earnings increased it paid more to invest in fewer children. There is no reference what so ever to growing medical knowledge or to public health measures!

I believe that it is possible to understand people’s choice to have children from the incentive framework. But this cannot be done without having close contextual information – social consequences of women’s choice of contraception, availability of safe contraceptive facilities, child survival rates, among other things are affected by social and cultural factors. More importantly for this argument, the presence of reliable and cheap public health facilities makes an important difference to the cost of contraceptive choice. The incentive to have more babies cannot be understood without understanding all these ground level information. Unfortunately, Easterly does not even pay lip service to these complex issues. Instead he ‘derives’ the incentive argument from the overall productivity of the economy. In the process he makes a strong argument for growth (and thus, ignoring complexities is a smart political choice), but trivializes options for controlling population.

This becomes dangerous when we look at it within the subtext of the “Good Policy” that he argues for through the book. The Washington Consensus mindset works against meaningful investments in public health, education and other public investments. Contraception is not equal to condoms and long term contraceptive choices often require safe, reliable and cheap public health systems in low income countries. The problem is that the growth fundamentalism that underlies his analysis combined with an unquestioned allegiance to conservative policies make a case for not investing in public health systems. If it does so, the practice of “Good Policies” can end up undermining the objective instead of achieving it.

Qualifications of my argument

My criticism needs careful qualifications. To begin with Easterly does not argue explicitly for a reduction of public health facilities. It is my deduction that his tendency to look at growth as the cure-all of every social problem combined with an almost unquestioned support for conservative policies makes a case for lowering public health budgets. If one were to go by policy debates in India and other countries by growth fundamentalists, I believe that my concern has a reasonable ground. Secondly, I do not argue that World Bank and IMF interventions always result in reducing public health spending. In some cases, I believe that they have led to significant interventions. I do not linearly link growth focus with low priority for public health. But one can make a strong argument that this framework works against public investments.

This does not dilute my critique that Easterly trivializes the complex phenomenon that demographic change is. If policy choices were made with this kind of information and approach, I am doubly sure that we cannot address the issue of population growth or any other social issue for that matter.

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Book: Anthropology and institutional economics

Editor: James M. Acheson

This volume is one of the rare collection of papers I found looking at Anthropology and institutional economics. Surprisingly, though the two have a large scope for collaboration, there is very little work happening between these two disciplines, to my knowledge. This volume provides a useful introduction. The book starts with an introduction about Anthropology and Institutional economics by James Acheson. This is followed by an essay on New Institutionalism by Robert Bates. The best part of the book is made up of case studies divided into three sections (1) Transactions cost, individual decisions & econoimc performance (2) Institutions and the state (3) Institutions and credit. Finally there is a section on theoretical issues concerning institutional economics. The book is an outcome of a meeting of society for economic anthropology at UC Irvine. The volume provides a strong flavour of how the two disciplines can collaborate. Among these, I especially liked, “Individual choice and institutional constraints: the new organization of health care in USA” by Melissa Rehfus and Christiana Gladwin. While most articles are informative, they left somethnig wanting in how things are theorised.

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Ambedkar is easily one of the finest Indian thinkers ever. Academically, he has a degree in law, a Masters in economics (from London School of Economics), and a doctorate in social sciences (from Columbia University). At Columbia he majored in sociology and economics for his M.A. with a smattering of anthropology, politics and philosophy as other subjects. He also had a stint at University of Bonn. His experience ranges from being a untouchable boy to the principal architect of India’s Constitution. He started and ran a political party and is arguably the most influential person ever in politicizing Dalits towards demanding a better lives for themselves.

This breadth of thinking and experience makes Ambedkar a fascinating and a purposeful writer. Many of his works are now available online at Ambedkar.org, and the collection is growing. This is a fantastic resource for anyone thinking of social issues in India today.  Being a Dalit, a politician, lawyer and a framer of the most fascinating constitutiosn in the world, Ambedkar is specially interesting for those interested in the role of instituitons in development.

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In this very entertaining talk, Ha Joon Chang argues against mainstream trade theories. He argues that most of the success stories, including the USA followed practices that are rejected by the current trade theories and that those who followed the policies have actually not done well. Ha Joon Chang argues this from an institutional perspective and makes a case for “infant industry argument”. While these arguments themselves are not too new, he brings in a lot of historical information that were new to me and gave me many “ah ha” moments. This entertaining and passionate talk is also delivered with a good sense of humour. It’s a great watch.

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