The Hindu Business Line : A loss to development economics

Sir Hans Singer championed the cause of the developing countries for over 60 years and was genuinely committed to the concerns of the poorer nations.

SIR HANS SINGER (1910-2006)... a doyen of development economics

Sir Hans Singer, a doyen of development economics, died on February 26 at the age of 95.

In a tribute, Prof Richard Jolly of the Institute of Development Studies, wrote: "With the death of Sir Hans — Hans to all of us in IDS and many beyond — the IDS has lost its brightest star and the world its most eminent development economists."

It is not the loss of the IDS alone. Indeed, it is an irreparable loss for all developing countries whose causes he championed for over 60 years. Hans was genuinely committed to the developmental concerns of the poorer countries. Sir Alec Cairncross would say, "There are few of the developing countries that he has not visited and still fewer that he has not advised. He must have addressed a wider variety of academics and a wider variety of subjects than any other economist, living or dead."

Sir Hans was initially with the UN Secretariat for over two decades from 1947 to 1969. His stint with the IDS commenced in 1969, when many others would have settled down to a relaxed retired life, and continued until the last day of his life.

His academic output was prodigious. John Shaw, who wrote his biography in 2002, lists 107 books, 83 major reports, over 260 professional articles and an almost unaccountable number of book reviews, letters to the press et al. His writing did not cease even in later years.

`DEVELOPMENTAL' THINKING

Sir Hans was among a generation of economists who were truly `developmental' in their thinking and dealing with the problems of developing countries. They perceived development in the larger context of human or societal development, which had to be nurtured by supporting institutions.

The generation included Albert Hirschman, Alexander Gerschenkron, Jan Tinbergen, Walt Rostow and P. C. Mahalanobis. They shared a common belief in state-led growth, which was an extension of Keynesianism. They were under the spell of Beveridge and his welfare agenda. They were also influenced by India. Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw quote Sir Hans thus: "This preconditioned me to take a direct interest in the problems of development planning, much in vogue in the immediate post-war year, with special focus on India. P. C. Mahanalobis became the prophet (or guru) of the development economists in this respect, and Calcutta became their Mecca" (The Commanding Heights, 1998, Simon and Schuster).

YEARS WITH THE UN

Sir Hans' years with the UN were when the organisation contributed greatly to thinking on developmental issues, especially of less developed countries that needed international support.

The International Labour Organisation, in its turn, tried to integrate economic growth with income distribution. Sir Hans' work for the ILO in 1972 on the problems of unemployment in Kenya blazed a new trail. As Prof Jolly commented, the Kenya Employment Mission was "one of the formative influences on development thinking and policy in the 1970s."

For Sir Hans, it was the continuation of the earlier tradition he had begun with his work on unemployment in the UK for the Pilgrim Trust in the early 1940s. He emphasised the need for social `inclusiveness' in developmental efforts. It would be in later decades that the Fund and the Bank borrowed the idea of "empowerment" in successive World Development Reports and poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP).

By and large, the UN team drew on the ideas and thinking of the global academic community, which included many Nobel laureates.

Sir Hans made his mark through his backroom or support to those experts. He worked with David Owen, the UN's first economist, as also with Sydney Dell, V.K.R.V. Rao and Michal Kalecki. He was instrumental in initiating the World Food Programme, the UN Development Programme and in transforming UNICEF from an emergency fund to an organisation concerned with the promotion of the long-term interests of children. His efforts lead to the establishment of the soft lending agency or the IDA within the World Bank.

AGAINST NEO-LIBERALISM

While in the IDS, he was engaged in intellectual battles against `neo-classical' economists and the structural adjustment programmes advocated by them. As Kunibert Raffer described, "Singer became an outspoken critic of neo-liberalism, feeling great concerns about the policies of the 1930s, which had brought about rising inequality, leading in turn to the rise of rightist parties and, especially in developing countries, to outright misery" (The Pioneers in Development Economics: Great Economists on Development, edited by Jomo K. S.; Tulika, New Delhi, 2005).

It took another decade for the euphoria over the Asian Miracle to evaporate. After the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 dented the credibility of neo-liberalism, Sir Hans hoped that the world would turn to Keynesianism again. It took one more decade for the Fund and the Bank to reckon that state must have a role in any meaningful and sustainable developmental strategy.

CLASSICAL THEORY QUESTIONED

One of the earliest battles Sir Hans fought on their behalf was in promoting the debate over the terms of trade. Until 1950 when Sir Hans published his findings, it was the unquestioned textbook wisdom bordering on theology that international trade benefited all the countries equally. He questioned the validity of classical trade theory and rocked the complacency of free traders.

It is now on record that Sir Hans was the original author of the idea though in later years he worked jointly with Raul Prebisch, an Argentine economist who worked for the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). They gathered empirical data and established that the terms of trade were turning adverse for developing countries engaged in primary product exports. The US was so much disturbed by their findings and the support they received from developing countries in the emerging North/South conflict, that it attempted to close the ECLA. Fortunately, ECLA survived for other reasons. The Singer-Prebisch thesis survived purely on the basis of its intrinsic theoretical soundness.

GLOBALISATION DEBATE

In one of his books published in 2001, Sir Hans draws attention to the growing concentration of economic resources and the power of global MNCs and financial firms under globalisation and how economic growth that goes with it "has proceeded unevenly in time and space and the income gaps have widened over the years and the disparities between the rich and the poor nations almost doubled over the last decades." He was agonised to note that "Globalisation is a very uneven process, with unequal distribution of benefits and losses."

As an émigré who fled Nazi Germany and took refuge in the UK, Sir Hans wished to create a world, which would "assure equitable participation in economic improvements" and in which people mattered. His is a tragic loss for countries like India.

(The author, a former Finance Ministry official, has extensive experience in international, financial and trade issues.)