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Nobel winner feels no grand theory can explain underdevelopment: Economists
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SME Times News Bureau | 15 Oct, 2019
Successful micro-level field experiments like the one that established a
connect between barefoot children, whooping cough and school drop outs
in Africa characterise the works of Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee and his
wife Esther Duflo who believe there can be no grand theory of
underdevelopment, said economists.
Banerjee, Dufflo and Michael
Kremer were awarded the Nobel prize for Economics on Monday for their
research that considerably improved the ability to fight global poverty,
Athe Royal Swedish Academy of Science announced.
Describing
Banerjee as a down to earth man both in his research methodology as also
in personal life, Indian Statistical Institute professor Abhirup Sarkar
pointed out how he drove deep into history and traced through rigorous
empirical work that the zamindari system of Bengal resulted in the state
lagging behind in adoption of agricultural technology compared to
Maharashtra that had the ryotwari land revenue system in British India.
"Ryotwari
is incentive driven. If I produce more, a part of the extra produce
will come to Me. But in the zamindari system, if the farmer produces
more, the extra production will go to the zamindar. So there was no
incentive for the technical progress achieved by a farmer in the
zamindari system.
"History persists in the sense that the same
mindset is there despite both zamindari and ryotwari systems ceasing to
exist long back," Sarkar told IANS.
"This method - the Randomised
Controlled Trial - he has used successfully by conducting numerous
practical micro-level field experiments with small sample sizes," said
Sarkar.
Elaborating further, Sarkar said in development
economics, there are a great number of theories on why people are poor.
"Some may hold that the poverty is there because there are no
institutions or marker, or because the government does not work.
"But
according to Banerjee, these are all grand theories. He believes there
can be no grand theories which can explain underdevelopment. In his
economical outlook, micro problems have micro-solutions, context based
solutions, problem based solutions," he said.
Economist Dipankar
Dasgupta said Banerjee and his associates are the pioneers in the
Randomised Controlled Trial methodology in economic research. This
methodology was earlier used in medical science and psychology.
Sarkar
said while researching on why students were not going to school in an
African country, instead of going into theories Banerjee and his team
conducted a survey.
"The survey found that because the students walk barefoot they develop whooping cough.
Following
the randomised controlled trial method, the researchers formed two
groups. "One group was given shoes, the other group remained barefoot.
It was seen that those wearing shoes did not have whooping cough, were
more healthy, and attending school.
"This is an example where no
theory is needed and the solution is also very simple. There is no
unnecessary glorification," he added.
Dasgupta said most of Banerjee's experiments took place in various parts of India, including its villages.
"All were micro-level research efforts," he said.
Dasgupta
said during his early years as an economist, Banerjee was primarily a
theorist. But his approached changed after Duflo became his student.
"Then he shifted to a purely experimental approach".
Banerjee's
father late Dipak Banerjee and mother Nirmala Banerjee were economists..
In fact, both Sarkar and Dasgupta are students of senior Banerjee at
Presidency College.
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