Over the past few weeks, as my knowledge of the deprivation of India's citizens has grown, my faith and belief in education in higher economics has declined. A senior once told me that at a time when the world is growing disillusioned with the 'unrealness' of economics, we as a discipline continue to focus on mathematics and statistics as a major, major component of what we do - and hence drive further into 'unreal' territory. For example, if I were a policy maker, would it help me to be spend days in my armchair and be 100% accurate about my answer, or put two and two together, and provide a broadly correct answer. In consulting, we call it the '80-20' answer - as long as I have discovered 80% of the answer (and arguably the more important components), is it worthwhile to spend effort looking for the other 20%?
My view of the economy has turned more sharply into a 'production and distribution' mechanism. By production, I refer to goods and services that augment human happiness or welfare. I use distribution in a very generic sense. For the economists who seek to change our country, the final agents who act upon our recommendations will be people who are not at all acquainted with economics. I wonder what will be more likely to move them to action - to say that my regression has been corrected for X,Y and Z errors; or to weave the insights together into a compelling story of 'so-what's'.
What has helped me in the past few days is some very elementary notion of how people behave, especially their social behaviour. Concepts such as externalities, public goods, asymmetric information etc have been the concepts I can most often refer to, when reading about India's social issues. To draw insights from the heap of data before me, I have not yet found reason to look at advanced statistics or mathematics. It is logic, and some basic idea of correlations that have been most helpful. For everything else, I can refer to the published knowledge of people who are far more erudite than I can hope to be.
There is a broader theme I would want to answer at some point, but I'll provide a flavour of that here. I find our collective distaste of the 'corporate sector' very jarring. We often paint it as a selfish, ruthless and inhumane world. But here I have learnt skills that my education (in economics, or otherwise) would have never taught me. Here I have learnt the basic idea of economics, to economise! It isn't always necessary for me to kill myself in the relentless pursuit of perfection, to engage in debates that will change neither my life, nor anyone else's; it is here that I have learnt most to value others' time, and my own; it is here that I have learnt to be respectful towards contributions that people in other fields are making - for example, by the simple method of calling them 'experts' (thus acknowledging our own lack of expertise). It is here that I have learnt to come out of the ivory tower, and have learnt humility. When among economists, I am as proud of my training in consulting, as I am about my training in economics among consultants.
The final set of questions I have to answer are - how can I ever hope to be a good economist if I'm not there on the ground (by 'on the ground', I do not mean 'rural surveys' or 'visits'. I mean being part of the people who are generating value in the economy)? how can I hope to change the world if I am cut off from it? How can I hope to lead change if I am distant? How can I change people's lives if I am more into numbers and statistics than into people?
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Disclaimer: This article is written in the spirit of questioning. Since I have not received postgraduate education in economics, I am ill-equipped to comment on its utility. One day, I hope to pursue higher education in economics - however, I do not want to go into it with even the slightest notion that economics is the saving grace of humanity. Only then, I believe, will my education withstand challenges.
