India must raise its knowledge capital, says economist R. Radhakrishna

Since basic research is a public good, government funding for basic research is important, said R. Radhakrishna, economist and Chairman and Professor at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad.

Radhakrishna was speaking during his inaugural address as chief guest at an international conference on Applied Econometrics. The conference was organised by Hyderabad-based ICFAI Business School (IBS) in collaboration with Delhi’s The Indian Econometric Society.

Citing the famous welfare economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, Radhakrishna said that all research is either fruit-bearing, as in the case of applied research, or light-bearing, as in the case of basic research.

Capital for growth

In his address on scientific and statistical methods, Radhakrishna, who is also former Chairman of the National Statistical Commission, spoke about how the accumulation of knowledge is as important as the accumulation of capital for economic growth and development.

He said that the share of India’s contribution to world knowledge creation is about three per cent today, while China’s share has risen from one per cent to over 10 per cent in the last few decades. This has important implications on economic growth and stability.

Thus, the country needs to focus on research and development even more.

Over seventy academicians and scholars from reputed institutes and universities across the country participated in the conference.

Technical sessions were conducted in Financial Economics, Industrial Economics, Development Economics, International Economics and Monetary Economics.

Session chairs and presenters of technical papers included researchers from International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune; Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani; Indian Institutes of Technology at Kanpur, Kharagpur and Hyderabad; Central Universities of Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad; Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi; University of Mumbai; Institute of Public Enterprises, Hyderabad and many others.