When Governments Fail: A pandemic and its aftermath

• August 2021
• 6.14 x 9.21 inches
• (xx+292) 312 pages
• Hardback
• ISBN: 978-81-947175-4-6
• Rs 900

The Covid-19 pandemic has generated human suffering and economic devastation across the world – but these reflect not just the effects of the disease but the policy failures of governments. The pandemic has highlighted and accentuated the extent of inequalities between and within countries. These have been reflected in the differential ability of different countries to deal with the disease and limit the contagion, as well as the impact on economies of both the disease and containment measures like lockdowns. Some countries have been remarkably successful in managing the disease, while others have shown rapid spread despite severe lockdown strategies; economic policies in response to the health crisis have also varied greatly, and have had very different outcomes in different parts of the world. How do we interpret these differing trajectories of the disease, policy responses and economic outcomes? What does this tell us about the current stage of global capitalism and the evolution of particular economies?

This volume brings together articles that came out of an online lecture series jointly organized by the Society for Social and Economic Research (SSER) and International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) over a period of about one month in April–May 2020, when the pandemic was still in its first rising wave. The subsequent trajectory of the disease and the continued persistence of infection and vulnerability have made them all the more relevant. The chapters in this book go well beyond analysing the observed patterns and assessing the official responses, to proposing necessary and viable policy alternatives. If the world is truly to transcend this pandemic and its economic fallout, and be in a position to confront other current and future challenges, the arguments made in this volume are likely to become even more important.

CONTENTS

Tables and Figures

INTRODUCTION

Covid-19 and the Economy: Initial Impacts across the World

VIKAS RAWAL, JAYATI GHOSH and C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR

PART ONE

Global and Regional Trajectories

1) Globalization and the Pandemic

PRABHAT PATNAIK

2) Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century: Lopsided Growth and Intensified Social Exclusion

ERINÇ YELDAN

3) The Gendered Macroeconomics of Covid-19

JAYATI GHOSH

4) Covid-19 in Europe:  Aggravating North–South Tensions in the European Union

ERIK S. REINERT

5) International Financial Cooperation to Address the Latin American Economic Crisis

JOSÉ ANTONIO OCAMPO

6) Economic Impact of Covid-19 in South America

MARTÍN ABELES, MARTÍN CHERKASKY and MATÍAS TORCHINSKY LANDAU

7)  The Coronavirus and the Emerging Media Ecology

SASHI KUMAR

PART TWO

The Impact of Policy Responses

8) The Pandemic Requires a Different Macroeconomic Policy Response

JAN KREGEL

9) Explaining the Differences in Covid-19 Mortality between the North and the South

GIOVANNI ANDREA CORNIA

10)  Look East, Not West: Comparative Lessons for Containing Covid-19 Contagion

JOMO KWAME SUNDARAM

11) Thailand and Covid-19: What’s Happened and What’s Next

PASUK PHONGPAICHIT and CHRIS BAKER

12) The Indian Economy Before and After the Pandemic

C. P. CHANDRASEKHAR

13) The Coronavirus and India’s Economic Crisis: Continuity and Change

SURAJIT MAZUMDAR

14) Mexico: Confronting the Pandemic while Transforming the Political Landscape

ALICIA PUYANA MUTIS and LILIA GARCIA MANRIQUE

PART THREE

Food and Agriculture in a Time of Disease

15)  The Bengal Famine and Its Lessons for the Present

UTSA PATNAIK

16)  Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Indian Agriculture

ABHIJIT SEN and VIKAS RAWAL

17) Covid-19: An Opportunity for Breaking with the Global Food Supply Chain

WALDEN BELLO

CONTRIBUTORS

Martín Abeles is Director, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Buenos Aires. His main areas of expertise are macroeconomics, international finance and development economics. He has been a research fellow at various academic institutions and held different positions at the Ministry of Economy in Argentina. He is currently Director, Master’s Programme in Development Economics at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM) in Argentina.

Chris Baker is a historian. His early work is on the political history of south India. He has worked extensively on Thailand’s political economy, history and literature. In 2017, he (with Pasuk Phongpaichit) won the Fukuoka Grand Prize which ‘honors individuals or groups that have made outstanding achievements in preservation and creation of the unique and diverse cultures of Asia’.

Walden Bello is a well-known activist, academic and writer from the Philippines. He is currently International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and co-chairperson of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. He received the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in Stockholm in 2003 for his work showing the negative impact of corporate-driven globalization.

C. P. Chandrasekhar is former Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His areas of interest include the macroeconomics of development and the role of finance and industry in developing countries. He is a regular columnist for Frontline, Business Line and Economic and Political Weekly. Among his recent publications are Demonetisation Decoded: A Critique of India’s Currency Experiment (co-authored with Jayati Ghosh and Prabhat Patnaik, 2020) and Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’ and the Present: Four Essays (2017).

Martín Cherkasky is an economist at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Buenos Aires. He studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and the National University of San Martín (UNSAM). His research focuses on macroeconomics, international finance and economic growth.

Giovanni Andrea Cornia taught development at the University of Florence from 2000 to 2017, where he was made Honorary Professor of Economics in 2017. From 1995 to 2000, he was Director, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki. He also worked as lead economist at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) headquarters in New York and the Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) in Florence. His work has focused on inequality, macroeconomics, poverty, mortality and child well-being.

Jayati Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly thirty-five years, and is now Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. She has authored and edited (alone and in collaboration) twenty books and published more than 200 scholarly articles, in addition to writing frequently in the popular media. She has been Executive Secretary, International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) and serves on a number of international commissions.

Jan Kregel is Director of Research at the Levy Economics Institute, USA. He has served as Rapporteur of the President of the United Nations General Assembly’s Commission on Reform of the International Financial System, directed the Policy Analysis and Development Branch of the United Nations Financing for Development Office, and was Deputy Secretary of the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. In 2011, Kregel was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He is a life fellow of the Royal Economic Society (UK) and an elected member of the Società Italiana degli Economisti.

Sashi Kumar is a journalist, filmmaker and media entrepreneur. He founded the Media Development Foundation, which runs the Asian College of Journalism, the Asianet TV channel and statewide cable TV network in Kerala, and Asiaville, a digital infotainment and education venture. He was a producer and presenter on Doordarshan, West Asia correspondent of The Hindu and chief producer of PTI-TV. He scripted and directed Kaya Taran, a movie based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and has acted in a few feature films. His columns ‘Unmediated’ in Frontline form part of a book by the same title, published in 2014.

Matías Torchinsky Landau is a consultant at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Buenos Aires. His research focuses on economic growth, international trade and input–output analysis.

Lilia García Manrique is a PhD scholar in economics at the University of Sussex.Previously, she has worked as a research assistant at the Latin American Facultyof Social Science (FLACSO).

Surajit Mazumdar is Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was also on the faculty of Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), New Delhi and Hindu College, University of Delhi. The focus of his research is on the Indian corporate sector, industrialization and the impact of globalization on the economy in India.

José Antonio Ocampo is Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. He is Chair of the Committee for Development Policy of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as well as of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation. He has occupied numerous positions at the United Nations and in Colombia, including UN Under- Secretary-General, Economic and Social Affairs; Executive Secretary, ECLAC; Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture, and Director of the National Planning Office of Colombia; and member of the board of directors of Banco de la República.

Prabhat Patnaik has taught at the University of Cambridge, UK and at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he held the Sukhamoy Chakravarty Chair at the time of his retirement and is currently Professor Emeritus. His books include Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism (1997), The Value of Money (2009), Re-envisioning Socialism (2011)and A Theory of Imperialism (co-authored with Utsa Patnaik, 2016). His most recent book, Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present (co-authored with Utsa Patnaik, 2021), is winner of the Paul A. Baran–Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award. He is the Editor of the journal Social Scientist.

Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her main research interests are the processes of transition from peasant-predominant societies to industrial society; colonialism and imperialism; and food security and poverty. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), The Long Transition (1999), The Republic of Hunger (2007), A Theory of Imperialism (co-authored with Prabhat Patnaik, 2016) and Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present (co-authored with Prabhat Patnaik, 2021).

Pasuk Phongpaichit is Professor of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. She has written widely on Thailand’s political economy, history and literature. In 2017, she (with Chris Baker) won the Fukuoka Grand Prize.

Alicia Puyana is full-time Professor of Economics at FLACSO-MEXICO, and is a member of IDEAs, Oxford Development and other academic boards. She has been a visiting fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford and London School of Economics. Puyana is the author and editor of books and articles on economic growth, economic regional integration, oil economics and extractivism, growth and inequality, ethnic and gender discrimination in Latin America, and ethics in economics.

Vikas Rawal is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research has mainly focused on agrarian issues, food security and employment. He has conducted field-based research in many states of India. He has also worked on global issues related to agriculture and food. His recent book (co-edited with Dorian K. Navarro), The Global Economy of Pulses, was published in 2019 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Erik S. Reinert is Professor at the Tallinn University of Technology and Honorary Professor at University College London. Reinert holds an MBA from Harvard University and a PhD in economics from Cornell University. Much of his work is dedicated to teaching and researching the theory and history of uneven development. His book, How Rich Countries got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (2007), has been translated into around twenty-five languages.

Abhijit Sen retired as Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was a member of the Planning Commission for two terms and chaired the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices apart from many other high-level committees of the Government of India. His work encompasses macroeconomics, planning and development, and agricultural economics. He is currently President of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Senior Advisor at the Khazanah Research Institute, Fellow of the Academy of Science, Malaysia, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Malaya. He is Founder-Chair, IDEAs, and was Assistant Secretary- General for Economic Development in the United Nations system from 2005 to 2015. He received the 2007 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Erinç Yeldan is Professor of Economics and Dean at Kadir Has University, Turkey. He is one of the executive directors of IDEAs, and serves as a member-elect of the International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He is also a member-elect of the Science Academy (Bilim Akademisi) in Turkey. Yeldan’s recent work focuses on development macroeconomics, vulnerability and fragmentation of labour markets, deindustrialization, the economics of climate change, and on empirical, dynamic general equilibrium models.

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