Jagdish Bhagwati

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Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati (born 1934) is a prominent economist noted for his defense of free trade against the critics of globalization. He is a University Professor of Economics at Columbia University.

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[edit] Early years

Bhagwati was born into a Gujarati Family in Mumbai in 1934 and graduated from Sydenham College, Mumbai. He graduated with a BA in Economics from Cambridge University (St. John's), England in 1956, and received Ph.D. (Economics) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967.

[edit] Career

Bhagwati has previously served as an external advisor to the Director General of the World Trade Organization in 2001, as a special policy advisor on globalization to the United Nations in 2000, and as an economics policy advisor to the Director-General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade from 1991 to 1993. From 1968 until 1980, Bhagwati was an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [1] Bhagwati currently serves on the Academic Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch (Asia) and on the board of scholars of the Centre for Civil Society. He is a Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2000, Bhagwati was signatory to an amicus briefing, coordinated by the American Enterprise Institute, with Supreme Court to contend that the Environmental Protection Agency should, contrary to a prior ruling, be allowed to take into account the costs of regulations when setting environmental standards.

In January, 2004, Bhagwati published In Defense of Globalization, a book in which he argues "this process [of globalization] has a human face, but we need to make that face more agreeable."

In May, 2004, Bhagwati was one of the experts who took part in the Copenhagen Consensus project.

In 2006, Bhagwati was a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons who reviewed the work of UNCTAD.

[edit] Family

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Bhagwati is married to Padma Desai, the Gladys and Ronald Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at Columbia University. They have one daughter. His elder brother Justice P.N Bhagwati is a former Chief Justice of India and his niece Pallavi Shroff heads one of India's largest law firms.

[edit] Awards

  • In 2006, he was awarded Japan's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.
  • He was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce in 2004.
  • In 2000 he was awarded Padma Vibhushan award.
  • He received the Seidman Distinguished Award in International Political Economy in 1998.
  • In 1974, he was awarded the Indian Econometric Society's Mahalanobis Memorial Medal.
  • Other awards include the Bernhard Harms Prize (Germany), the Kenan Enterprise Award (United States), the Freedom Prize (Switzerland), and the John R. Commons Award (United States).
  • He has also received honorary degrees from the University of Sussex and Erasmus University, as well as others.[2][3]

[edit] Books

Following are the books published by Jagdish Bhagwati.

  • Jagdish Bhagwati (2004). In Defense of Globalization. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517025-3. 
  • Jagdish Bhagwati (2002). The Wind of the Hundred Days: How Washington Mismanaged Globalization. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52327-2. 
  • James H. Mathis, Jagdish Bhagwati (Foreword) (2002). Regional Trade Agreements in the GATT/WTO: Article XXIV and the Internal Trade Requirement. Norwell/TMC Asser Press. ISBN 90-6704-139-4. 
  • Jagdish N. Bhagwati (Editor), Robert E. Hudec (Editor) (1996). Fair Trade and Harmonization, Vol. 1: Economic Analysis. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-02401-2. 

[edit] Quotes

  • "I measure a scholar’s prolific-ness not by the mere number of his publishings. Just as the area of a rectangle equals its width times its depth, the quality of a lifetime accomplishment must weight each article by its novelties and wisdoms...Jagdish Bhagwati is more like Haydn: a composer of more than a hundred symphonies and no one of them other than top notch...In the struggle to improve the lot of mankind, whether located in advanced economies or in societies climbing the ladder out of poverty, Jagdish Bhagwati has been a tireless partisan of that globalization which elevates global total-factor----productivities both of richest America and poorest regions of Asia and Africa."

Paul Samuelson on the occasion of Bhagwati's 70th Birthday festschrift conference in Gainesville Florida, January 2005.

Source: "Jagdish Bhagwati, the wunderkind who became the tireless theorist of international trade" by Paul A. Samuelson

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links