Kaushik Basu

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Kaushik Basu
Basu in Festival Economia 2013
11th Chief Economist of the World Bank
In office
October 2012 – October 2016
PresidentJim Yong Kim
Preceded byMartin Ravallion (Acting)
Succeeded byPaul Romer
14th Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India
In office
2009–2012
Prime MinisterManmohan Singh
Preceded byArvind Virmani
Succeeded byRaghuram Rajan
Personal details
Born (1952-01-09) 9 January 1952 (age 72)
Humboldt Prize (2021)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Kaushik Basu (born 9 January 1952) is an Indian economist who was

Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.[4]
Basu is winner of the Humboldt Research Award 2021.

Early life and education

Kaushik Basu was born in

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, in 2013, University of Bath, UK in 2016, on the occasion of the university's fiftieth anniversary, and the Jadavpur University Kolkata in 2018.[7]

Basu's childhood interest in Euclidean geometry found expression and drew attention when he was Chief Economist of the World Bank and published a paper giving a new proof of the Pythagoras theorem, via a property of isosceles triangles.[8][9]

Career

Basu has held visiting professorships at the

Université catholique de Louvain's Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and the London School of Economics, where he was a distinguished visitor in 1993. Additionally, he was a visiting scientist at the Indian Statistical Institute, a public university in Kolkata.[citation needed
]

Basu was the Chief Economic Adviser to India's Ministry of Finance while on leave from Cornell University where he is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies. A Fellow of the

traveller's dilemma.[11]

In 1992 he founded the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, and served as its first executive director until 1996.[12]

Basu is a columnist for BBC News Online, the Hindustan Times, Business Standard and is the author of several books on economics and a play, Crossings at Benaras Junction, which was published in The Little Magazine (vol. 6, 2005). He is the editor of the Oxford Companion to Economics in India, published by Oxford University Press (February 2007), a compendium on the Indian economy.

On 5 September 2012, he was appointed Chief Economist at the World Bank.[2]

Basu was the president of the Human Development and capabilities association founded by Amartya Sen.[citation needed] He is the Editor of Social Choice and Welfare, Associate Editor of Japanese Economic Review, and is on the Board of Editors of the World Bank Economic Review. He was elected to take over as president of the International Economic Association in June 2017, for a three-year term.[citation needed]

Basu is the motivation behind Arthapedia, an online portal that provide explanations to the concepts used in Indian public policy to assist its understanding among citizens.[13] He created Dui-doku, a competitive two-player version of Sudoku.[14]

While working at the World Bank, Basu also taught courses on game theory at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.[15] He writes monthly columns for Project Syndicate.[16]

He has been the on the Social Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize from 2011, serving as Jury Chair from 2012.[17]

Basu teaches at Cornell University, where he has a joint appointment as an economics professor in the Department of Economics and the SC Johnson College of Business.[citation needed]

Economic and political views

Basu has written on the importance of Adam Smith's identification of the invisible hand of the market and how that helps coordinate the self-interested behaviour of individuals to achieve order and optimality in an economy. He feels that this is such an unexpected finding that it led many traditional economists to overlook and then forget that moral qualities, like honesty, fairness, and integrity are critical for an economy to flourish. They are the nuts and bolts that enable the invisible hand to be effective. Basu also feels the need to promote quality thinking in government and public debate.[18]

Basu has written in favour of Marx's ideal of a society where each person gets according to their need and gives according to their ability. He argues in his book, Beyond the Invisible Hand, that the fault lies not in the Marxist aspiration but in using the wrong blueprint to get to such an ideal. Some of the biggest blunders in history have been made from attempting to get to this ideal without a scientific roadmap. This is the reason why radical movements such as the one in the USSR began trying to build a humane, socialist society and ended up with crony capitalism. Basu has recently worked on our collective moral responsibility and the role that individuals play in fulfilling them.[19]

Views on bribery

In his paper, 'Why, for a class of Bribes, the act of Giving Bribes should be treated as legal", Basu refers to certain bribes as 'Harassment Bribes' that are given to get what a person is legally entitled to such as a ration card or a passport. In such cases, only the act of taking a bribe should be illegal. This will cause a divergence in the interests of the bribe giver and taker and the bribe giver will be willing to co-operate to help the bribe taker get caught. This view has been under a lot of public debate.[20]

Personal life

Basu is married to

Alaka Malwade Basu
with two children.

Awards and honours

Selected bibliography

Books

References

  1. ^ "Basu, Kaushik". Library of Congress. Retrieved 17 July 2014. CIP t.p. (Kaushik Basu) data sheet (b. Jan. 9, 1952)
  2. ^ a b "World Bank Appoints Kaushik Basu Chief Economist" (Press release). World Bank. 5 September 2012. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  3. ^ "Plaksha | Reimagining Technology Education and Research". plaksha.org. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  4. ^ "Business Financial, Economy, Market, Stock - News & Updates". www.thehindubusinessline.com. Archived from the original on 8 July 2010.
  5. ^ Rasheeda Bhagat. "Business Line : Features / Life : Kaushik gets candid". Thehindubusinessline.com. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
  6. ^ Business Standard (17 September 2009). "Kaushik Basu tipped for CEA's post". Business Standard India. Business-standard.com. Retrieved 26 March 2012. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ "Ex-CEA Kaushik Basu says slowing GDP growth cause for concern". The Economic Times. 25 December 2018. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
  8. ^ Coy, Peter (18 September 2015). "World Bank Economist Proves Pythagorean Theorem (2,600 Years Late)". Bloomberg. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  9. S2CID 125424426
    .
  10. PMID 14513522
    .
  11. ^ Kaushik Basu (May 1994). "The Traveler's Dilemma: Paradoxes of Rationality in Game Theory". American Economic Review. 84 (2): 391–395.
  12. ^ "Kaushik Basu appointed eco advisor to FM". The Times of India. 9 December 2009.
  13. ^ "Site Under Construction". www.arthapedia.in. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012.
  14. ^ Goldstein, Jacob (6 September 2012). "Two-Player Sudoku, Invented by the World Bank's New Chief Economist". NPR's Planet Money. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  15. ^ Lopez, Julyssa (27 March 2013). "World Bank Chief Economist Gives Students Lessons on 'Game Theory'". GW Today. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  16. ^ "Kaushik Basu - Project Syndicate". Project Syndicate. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  17. ^ "Infosys Prize - Jury 2020". www.infosys-science-foundation.com. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  18. ^ Business Standard (3 May 2011). "Lunch with BS: Kaushik Basu". Business Standard India. Business-standard.com. Retrieved 26 March 2012. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  19. S2CID 235568992
    . Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  20. ^ "Request Rejected" (PDF).
  21. ^ Business Standard (8 December 2009). "Kaushik Basu assumes office as CEA". Business-standard.com. Retrieved 26 March 2012. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  22. ^ Blog, News (22 May 2013). "Fordham Notes: Kaushik Basu's GBA Commencement Address". {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  23. ^ "Kaushik Basu receives Humboldt Research Award". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  24. ^ "Indian economist Kaushik Basu awarded prestigious Humboldt Research Award". India Today. 6 July 2021. Retrieved 21 November 2021.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kaushik Basu.
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by President of the Human Development and Capability Association
2010–2012 		Succeeded by
Tony Atkinson
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Chief Economist of the World Bank
2012–2016 		Succeeded by
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