Jagdish Bhagwati on Fixing the Rest of the World's Economic Systems | Big Think

Jagdish Bhagwati on Fixing the Rest of the World's Economic Systems

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Jagdish Bhagwati on fixing the economies of non G-20 nations.

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Jagdish Bhagwati:

One of the most influential trade theorists of his generation, Jagdish Bhagwati is a professor of economics at Columbia University and a Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1991-1993 Bhagwati was an Economic Policy Advisor to Arthur Dunkel, the Director of GATT. For the World Trade Organization, he has been an External Advisor to the WTO and has served on the Expert Group on the Future of the WTO appointed by the Director General. Bhagwati has been a Special Advisor to the UN on Globalization. He was also on the Advisory Committee to Secretary General Kofi Annan on the NEPAD process in Africa, and a member of the Eminent Persons Group under the chairmanship of President Fernando Henrique Cartoso on the future of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Bhagwati is the recipient of several prizes and honorary degrees, including Gold and Silver Stars from Japan's Order of the Rising Sun and the Padma Vibhushan from the government of India. The author and/or editor of over fifty volumes and over three hundred articles, Bhagwati's articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New Republic and The Times Literary Supplement. He founded the Journal of International Economics in 1971 and another journal, Economics & Politics, in 1989.

His most recent books are In Defense of Globalization (2004) and Free Trade Today (2002); his early books, particularly India: Planning for Industrialization (1970) and India (1975) opened the doors for current economic reform in India; on these reforms he was advisor to India's Finance Minister, now Prime Minister.

Bhagwati has delivered lectures at many top educational institutions and appeared on television shows including the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour, the Charlie Rose Show and Bloomberg. He is a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, on the board of the Academic Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch, Asia and on the Council of the Economic Priorities Accreditation Agency. The recipient of many awards, among them the Mahalanobis Memorial Medal, the Bernhard Harms Prize, the Kenan Prize, the John R. Commons Award, the Freedom Prize and the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy, he has been awarded honorary degrees from several universities.

Jagdish Bhagwati graduated from Cambridge University in 1956 and continued his studies at MIT and Oxford. Before joining the faculty at Columbia, he was a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, the Delhi School of Economics, and MIT.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jagdish Bhagwati: Well I think that three things we can learn from the – at least I’ve learned – in the post-war period. Because we had about 50 years of experience, and I’ll focus more on the poorer countries. The rich countries aren’t all that different anyway in terms of what I’m saying.

One is we need to be less fearful of the international trade and investment. We were so fearful. A lot of poorer countries just turned off trade altogether. India in ’91, this inward flow of equity and investment – meaning of multinational equity – you won’t believe it was $10 million. Unbelievable. It didn’t make any sense, because ________ work. That’s just making it difficult for people to bring things in.

Sorry it was $100 million, not $10 million. I lost a zero on that one. But it’s still nothing when it’s one-third the size of our budget at Columbia University.

So it was really miserable. We have learned that trade and investment are an opportunity and not a threat. You can use them. It doesn’t mean you throw yourself completely open, but you can use them much more than many countries did.

I think that’s one important lesson.

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