KEEPING IT ALL ON RECORD

The economist Kaushik Basu brings to his memoir the same love for detail that defines his scholarship

- Ashok Desai

POLICYMAKER’S JOURNAL From New Delhi to Washington, D.C.
by Kaushik Basu
SIMON & SCHUSTER INDIA

In 2011, (roughly halfway through this memoir), Kaushik Basu’s curriculum vitae had 23 pages. Last year, it had 34 pages. He has written 197 papers—roughly one every quarter—and 21 books. He is a man of considerable activity and a prolific writer, used to record what he does. This volume is a memoir of seven of his 69 years—three spent as a chief economic advisor to the ministry of finance in Delhi, and four in the World Bank in Washington.

In Delhi, Basu had a friend and fellow economist in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whilst finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was little interested in economics. He did not have much work for Basu, whilst Manmohan Singh often called Basu for a chat and dinner. With little to do in South Block, Basu traveled around India and gave speeches. His time in the ministry saw high inflation, so he had plenty of opportunities to explain why it was so high. He was kept ignorant of the Vodafone affair, in which his ministry unfairly charged the company income tax on a transaction made abroad, lost in arbitration, and then took the case to a Singapore court.