T.S. Papola and the development of labour economics in India

Date01 March 2016
Published date01 March 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12009
International Labour Review, Vol. 155 (2016), No. 1
Copyright © The author 2016
Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2016
* Visiting Professor, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi and former Director,
International Institute for Labour Studies, email: gerry.rodgers@cantab.net. This article draws on
the author’s knowledge of Professor Papola’s work through a variety of personal contacts and
collaborations with him over many years. It also draws on an overview of his career prepared by
Rajendra P. Mamgain and Preet Rustagi for a seminar in his honour held in Lucknow in 2014:
“Notable Contributions: T S Papola”, which is to be published in 2016 by Academic Foundation,
New Delhi, in a collection of essays on labour and development. Comments and suggestions by
Janine Rodgers are gratefully acknowledged.
Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and
publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.
POST SCRIPT
T.S. Papola and the development
of labour economics in India
Gerry RODGERS*
Abstract. T.S. Papola, who passed away in November 2015, was one of the found-
ing members of the Editorial Board of the International Labour Review in 2007.
But he was above all a pioneering gure of labour economics in India, whose in-
uential work has gained wide international recognition. Drawing on the author’s
personal acquaintance and collaboration with Professor Papola, this short article
highlights some of his major contributions.
Trilok Singh Papola, who was a founder-member of the Editorial Board of
the International Labour Review when it was established in 2007, died
in New Delhi in November 2015. For almost a half a century he was a lead-
ing gure in labour economics in India. This short article reviews some of his
contributions.
If there was one overriding theme of Papola’s work it was that institu-
tions trump markets. The labour market certainly responds to market forces;
but these provide only “tendencies” (Papola and Subrahmanian, 1975, p. 4).
So models of the labour market that focus exclusively on supply and demand
will tend to miss the plot. Institutions, whether in the sense of state regulation,
the organization of workers or rms, or underlying social forces, are the prime
determinants of employment and wage patterns. This was why he was scep-
tical of efforts to promote labour market exibility or deregulation, frequently
based on an inadequate understanding of the way institutions function.

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