Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Techno-economic nobels

Prof S Ambirajan on 2001 Nobel Prize winners in Economics:

  • “It is not easy to summarise the work of even one of them because of the vast range of subjects they have traversed, but it is almost impossible to give a flavour of their combined work especially to a largely non-economist readership. Yet what they have done in the field of technical economics has considerable significance for everyone. Broadly speaking their work exhibits the following characteristics. First, their analysis is highly sophisticated and technical unlike an earlier generation of economists who while retaining the high level of technicality and sophistication, nevertheless tried to communicate to the non- specialists both within and outside the profession. The language of Mr. Heckman and Mr. McFadden is of a very specialist variety couched in advanced mathematics addressed specifically to fellow specialist practitioners taking for granted considerable prior knowledge.
  • Our academic tsars need to ponder why the quality and quantity of research output in India is so abysmally low and infinitely inferior to what comes out of American universities.

In an article Mr S. Muthiah said:

  • Ambirajan says, 'Did a poor schoolmaster's son from a small town in Saurashtra, with hardly Rs. 25,000 with him in l958, have any chance against a combination of the powerful Parsi business families...and Marwari merchants, not to mention the avaricious political class controlling the levers of a permit-licence-quota raj...? Dhirubhai Ambani could have led the virtuous life of an ethical yarn dealer in the backyards of Bombay and lived in a spartan chawl.

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