Re: picking the right colleague

["Anthony D'Costa" <dcosta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Let me add my two paisas worth.  I majored in Economics at the graduate
level.  I was from the very beginning interested in "development" problems.  I
studied in India which had a very American economics curriculum, the
usual micro, macro, monetary, math econo, macro models, econometrics,
etc.  While these were certainly useful building blocks for analysis,
they were totally inadequate to undertsand the "development" problems of
India.  Why was public investment falling, why the heavy industry plan
fail, what was the politics of rising agriculture productivity, etc.
etc.  Clearly the assumption was that there is one "economics."

After my master's I worked with a consulting firm for two years,
conducting studies on rural development and irrigation.  Several field
trips to the country side and organizing large scale surveys and data
collection revealed the reason why economics as taught cannot address
many of these "development" or if you want "real" life problems.  It was
simply because economists are generally far removed from the reality they
study.  Now this may be utter nonsense if let us one is talking about
macroeconomics.  After all how does one get near?  Nevertheless,
macroeconomics itself has an "arrogant" bias.  I find macroeconomic
reasoning elegant and very attractive but I am also very conscious of its
limitations, especially in a developing country context.  The conomic
forces simply do not play themsleves out as reasoned by macroeconomic
logic.  But macroeconomics is a field that economists in India want to be
in because you can develop elegant models without having to step out very
far.  Published data from government departments and central bank
authorities are generally used to "fit" the model.  There is an inherent
pull that draws bright students into macroeconomics, leaving other
critical areas empty.  Fortunately, many bright macroeconomists have
ventured into "dirtying their hands" by undertaking other more micro
level studies.

When I came to the US, I was in the Econ Dept for a Ph.D. and after one
year I quit to move into Public and International Affairs.  It was an
interdisciplinary program, one could entertain all kinds of questions, and
nothing was considered to be outside the discipline.  True,
methodologically it was not at all rigorous, but then as Joan Robinson
might have said, the world doesn't come in neat packages!  So whatever
research I do, generally microlevel industry studies, I always "dirty my
hands", spending considerable time and effort in travelling to places,
meeting officials, and visiting shop-floors.  Without a "feel" economic
problems as formulated by the mainstream will remain "distant."
Fortunately, I am in a program where I do not have to be concerned with the
pretentious "rigors" of a discipline.  I have my feet in a number of
disciplines!

To salvage "economics" as a discipline it must be more accomodating.
Political economists have certainly a great responsibility to shape
the discipline.

Anthony D'Costa


On Thu, 10 Nov 1994 COLANDER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Alas, I have to agree with Joanne and lament the state of the profession--
>
> no surprise.  But thhe issue is what can we do about it?  We need to
> graduate students to be doing risky work, and for better information
> to get around about the graduate students who are passionate about
> economics.  Anybody have any good ideas?
>