Express news service Posted online: Thu Jul 25 2013, 02:41 hrs
New Delhi : The performance of present Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao in managing the monetary policy has been one of the worst in the history of the bank, according to Arvind Panagariya, professor of economics at Columbia University.“I am afraid...this is one of the worst eras of performance by the RBI governor,” Panagariya said in an interview to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta for NDTV’s Walk The Talk programme.
According to Panagariya, the RBI’s errors compounded the break in the growth “momentum” of the economy, caused by Jairam Ramesh when he was the environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, the current environment minister, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
He also said that he “provoked” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to a debate on India’s economic model.
Panagariya said the RBI made a “huge mistake” in not building up dollar reserves when the rupee had appreciated sharply in 2009-10. “We could have built up our reserves. Now the war chest is too small” to fight the depreciation in the rupee, he said.
Instead, the RBI allowed Indian companies to borrow abroad liberally and raised interest rates consecutively 13 times, he said. “In a way, this new policy started with the current RBI Governor. I am sorry to say, but the timing connects to his tenure. His public pronouncements suggest to me that he really stands behind this policy,” said Panagariya.
Along with the RBI’s sustained increase in rates, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council pushed through redistributive programmes which were inefficient and therefore hurt the economy, he said. “Her instincts are right, but the instrumentality used is very harmful,” he added.
Citing the examples of the Right to Education Act and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, he said such programmes cost money that can only come through growth. But growth opportunities were cut because of the policy paralysis that came to characterise this government, he said. “Using the revenue that was produced by growth and then trying to run it down — this is really under-handed,” he added.
Panagariya said the debate on the Indian economy needs to be opened up to the role of the markets. Commenting on the difference between economists like him and Jagdish Bhagwati on one side (who have strongly espoused the role of free markets where better governance does not mean more governance) and Left-leaning economists like Amartya Sen on the other side, Panagariya said, “We finally provoked him... we said we will question you and you have to answer” instead of just pronouncing on ideas and positions. “Ten years ago. nobody questioned Amartya Sen. Not today. The whole debate has been unleashed,” he said.
According to Panagariya, the RBI’s errors compounded the break in the growth “momentum” of the economy, caused by Jairam Ramesh when he was the environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, the current environment minister, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
He also said that he “provoked” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to a debate on India’s economic model.
Panagariya said the RBI made a “huge mistake” in not building up dollar reserves when the rupee had appreciated sharply in 2009-10. “We could have built up our reserves. Now the war chest is too small” to fight the depreciation in the rupee, he said.
Instead, the RBI allowed Indian companies to borrow abroad liberally and raised interest rates consecutively 13 times, he said. “In a way, this new policy started with the current RBI Governor. I am sorry to say, but the timing connects to his tenure. His public pronouncements suggest to me that he really stands behind this policy,” said Panagariya.
Along with the RBI’s sustained increase in rates, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council pushed through redistributive programmes which were inefficient and therefore hurt the economy, he said. “Her instincts are right, but the instrumentality used is very harmful,” he added.
Citing the examples of the Right to Education Act and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, he said such programmes cost money that can only come through growth. But growth opportunities were cut because of the policy paralysis that came to characterise this government, he said. “Using the revenue that was produced by growth and then trying to run it down — this is really under-handed,” he added.
Panagariya said the debate on the Indian economy needs to be opened up to the role of the markets. Commenting on the difference between economists like him and Jagdish Bhagwati on one side (who have strongly espoused the role of free markets where better governance does not mean more governance) and Left-leaning economists like Amartya Sen on the other side, Panagariya said, “We finally provoked him... we said we will question you and you have to answer” instead of just pronouncing on ideas and positions. “Ten years ago. nobody questioned Amartya Sen. Not today. The whole debate has been unleashed,” he said.
On Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s position in this debate, he said: “He is more of a Bhagwati... I think it is his political compulsion that has driven him to this”. He added that “a lot of the Prime Minister’s fault is that he embraced it without providing sufficient opposition... he could have made a lot better effort to persuade the Congress president that this (not pushing reforms) was not a good path”.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/1146404/
No particular affection for either Modi or Rahul: Jagdish Bhagwati
by FP Staff 41 mins ago July 25, 2013 4:05 PM
Economist Jagdish Bhagwati has once again attacked Amartaya Sen’s policy prescriptions, just days after his bitter rant in Mint where he compared Sen to an “anti-semite.” ( Read more about that here).
Even Business Standard columnist Mihir Sharma in an article yesterday characterised Bhagwati as being petty and personal but awarded him the title of being ‘far more an economist’s economist than Sen’.
In an interview with CNN IBN’s Sagarika Ghosh, Bhagwati criticised Sen for ‘hurting the poor’.
“First, before 1991 reforms by essentially being lukewarm at best and unsupportive of reforms which transformed India and the chances for the poor…200 million people came above the poverty line. Now he’s going to do that again. So he’s the one economist who has hurt the poor twice,” he told CNN IBN.
Bhagwati also attacked Sen for supporting the Food Security Bill as it will increase spending and result in more inflation.
The economist went on to praise Gujarat’s growth model in the interview, but clarified that he has no particular affection for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
“The issue is not whether I am for growth and he’s somehow like Mother Teresa, in favour of social indicators. We are in favour of social indicators, social progress. The reason why I like the Gujarat model is that growth has taken place on social indicators.”
Earlier this week, Amartya Sen had in a candid interview with CNN IBNsaid he is not in favour of Modi as Prime Minister as he has not done enough to make minorities feel safe.
Bhagwati further clarified that he does not have any particular affection either for Modi or for Rahul Gandhi and the he wants a progressive leader irrespective of the party affiliation.
Interestingly Niranjan Rajadhyaksha in this column for Mint wrote that the Jagdish Bhagwati versus Amartya Sen battle is really a proxy fight between Modi versus Sonia Gandhi.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 | 11:34 AM IST