Articles by Bhabatosh Datta

Economic History and Economic Theory Bhabatosh Datta Epochs of Economic Theory by A K Dasgupta; Oxford University Press,
A K DASGUPTA has written a short and compact book on a grand design, covering in 145 pages of text the epochal changes in the questions asked by economic theorists in Britain over the 160-year period from Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (1776) to Keynes's "General Theory" (1936). More than a century and a half ago, James Mill, and much later in 1890, John Neville Keynes had written on relativity in economic theory and there have been others from time to time who had emphasised the historical basis of theoretical development. Dasgupta has confined himself to the British econo- mists and the British economy and has therefore precluded any discussion of the ideas of the German Historical School, which was emphatic in holding that the Smith-Ricardo economic analysis was a product of the historical changes that had taken place in Britain and that such an analysis would be inapplicable to the countries seeking economic growth under the shadow of a country which had already the advantage of an early start.

Suppressed Critique Bhabatosh Datta Reserve Bank of India: Annual Report 1985-86; Bombay, August 1986,
ONE can appreciate the embarrassing position of a body like the Reserve Bank of India when it has to report on the state of the economy in the past year (July 1985 to June 1986) and also to present some evaluation of the immediate prospects. It cannot (and does not) avoid the presentation of the actual developments and can permit itself to point out the deficiencies, shortfalls and disappointment of expectations. Its critical analysis has to be cautious and it has to be careful to conform broadly to the line of approach taken by the government. And it has to be more than cautious in making forecasts about the future. Sometimes, the pessimism about the past year is followed by a mild op* timism about the new year, without indicating the non-sequitur that may be involved. Nothing that the Bank has said about 1985-86 prepares the reader for the hope held out that "the performance of the economy in 1986-87 could be expected to be better than in the previous two years".

Bhabatosh Datta In the course of the last eleven months the Union government seems to have learnt some lessons. It has seen that despite substantial tax reliefs, the industrial production index has risen only 6.4 per cent in 1985, a rate substantially lower than the 8 per cent growth on which the Seventh Plan estimates are based. The government has also realised that the opening of the doors to imports of machinery and industrial ancillaries has led not only to an intractable balance of payments crisis but also a considerable damage to indigenous producers of such machinery, These producers have been led up the garden path by the theology of import substitution, and they include a large number of public sector enterprises. On the Plan side, the government has shown some recognition of the fact that, in the Indian situation, poverty cannot be alleviated by depending on market forces and expecting the benefits of increased production to trickle down to the poor automatically From the fact that certain lessons seem to have been learnt, one has some grounds for expecting a wind of change. But such a wind

Bringing Back Wage Flexibility Bhabatosh Datta The Share Economy: Conquering Stagflation by Martin L Weitzman; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1984; pp 167, $ 15.00.


plan of a stable anti-Sandinista regime open to US investment as long as it can be achieved short of regional war.
CONCLUSIONS Where does this configuration of government and corporate forces leave us?