People in Economics-The Globalization Guru
| Author | Arvind Subramanian interviews trade theorist and policy wonk Jagdish Bhagwati |
| Position | Division Chief in the IMF's Research Department |
What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" asked C.L.R. James, the renowned Trinidadian historian, essayist, and cricket writer. Rare is the modern day intellectual who has not fallen victim to the narrowness of knowing that James rebukes.
Jagdish Bhagwati is one such rarity, a throwback to the era of the classical scholar, the man of letters who knows many things. John Maynard Keynes praised Alfred Marshall, the Cambridge economist, for possessing an "ideal many-sidedness." One could say the same of Bhagwati, who is both theoretician and policy wonk, wielding a deft pen and moving easily between the ivory tower, op-ed pages, and corridors of influence. You have to stop and notice a man who tries to score a point on the merits of free trade by invoking a Balzac novella.
If over the past four decades, the world's borders have become, and been kept, more open, Bhagwati can claim some small credit for it. His core intellectual work and his policy advocacy have, according to Paul Krugman, played a "large if subtle role in keeping protectionism from becoming respectable." So when the Doha Round flounders or there is renewed clamor for imposing restrictions on Chinese imports or for penalizing "Benedict Arnold" firms that outsource their operations, Bhagwati can be counted on, Macavity-like, to take on the forces arrayed against freer trade. "When you choose to fight for free trade, you sign on for life. Like Jaws in James Bond films, protectionism rises again and again, taking ever-new forms," he tells F&D. An irrepressible optimist, he is not only a veteran of successfully tangling with die-hard Indian protectionists and Japan-bashers, but also, more recently, the likes of Joe Stiglitz and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), who embody today's backlash against globalization.
Bhagwati has worked tirelessly to broaden the debate on economic issues, in part by founding the highly successful Journal of International Economics in 1971, and Economics and Politics in 1989. He has written numerous articles and books on development, immigration, rent-seeking, democracy, and environmental and labor standards that have bagged several awards. He has taught and guided generations of trade economists, along with advising the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations (UN). And all of his passionate and reasoned outpourings have come from a pen touched by wit and elegance (see box). In short, he has been a looming, influential presence on the international policymaking scene for many years.
Bhagwati was born in 1934, one of seven children to an illustrious family in India, modest in means but lofty in its educational aspirations and social ideals. He recalls a happy but Spartan childhood, the tight purse strings loosened for only one indulgence: an unlimited account for the children at the local bookstore, where they devoured the classics, both Indian and Western. The investment paid off: a brother became Chief Justice of India's Supreme Court, another a world-renowned neurosurgeon, and a third a highly respected metallurgist. Achievement was almost pre-ordained in this family even though ideology clearly wasn't: his Chief Justice sibling is as doctrinaire a socialist as Bhagwati is a champion of markets and competition.
"Language matters. Metaphors matter," insists Bhagwati, who uses wit and words to explain and persuade. (His collection of articles and essays, "A Stream of Windows," won the prestigious Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing). Take, for example, the brother-in-law analogy that he uses to highlight the distinction between rent-seeking behavior and corruption. When you lobby for rents and use up resources, he explains, it is a directly unproductive (DUP) activity. But if there is a brother-in-law to whom the rents are inevitably headed, nobody will bother to lobby. In this case, there is corruption but no DUP activity. Unless, of course, some farsighted crook devotes resources to court the sister in order to become the brother-in-law in order to get the rents. Then we are back to rent-seeking.
Commenting on those who argue against free trade because it leads to...
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