Artha Vijnana: Journal of The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics

N. V. Sovani ¹

Affiliations
1 Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, IN

Abstract

I am very thankful to Professor Chitre for inviting me to inaugurate the academic activities of the Birth Centenary Year of Professor D. R. Gadgil, my teacher and mentor. This is a unique opportunity and I am honoured to have been offered it. The debate I have been requested to inaugurate is planned around two themes that can be shortly described as the co-operative movement and globaliztion, the two burning topics of the day. The debate is about what would have been Gadgil's reaction to them in their modern versions so far as can be gaged from his writings on these two subjects.

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N. V. Sovani ¹

Affiliations
1 Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, IN

Abstract

Imports of gold into India have been a drag on the rate of economic development of the country for the last few centuries, India is a poor producer of gold and gold in India has been an imported or foreign commodity, a fact that had not been understood neither by the propenents of the old Swadeshi Movement nor the present day Swadeshi Manch. (Gold imports absorb a significant part of the meagre savings of a poor country in an unproductive way and also lead to increased foreign indebtedness. A statistical exercise for the period 1873-98 shows that if during that period India had refrained from importing gold the rate of increase of GDP would have been significantly higher and foreign indebetedness of India significantly lower than what it was. Indian demand for gold is mainly for making arnament to wear and seems to be deeply embedded in Indian culture. It is very difficult to control. A ban on gold imports by Government is largely ignored as the history of the period 1947-91 shows. It only encourages smuggling. During 1981-1990 smuggled gold into India accounted for the loss of S 14 billion in foreign exchange. If gold had not been imported during this period, there would have been no foreign exchange crisis in 1991 and no need would have arisen for borrowing $ 3-4 billion from the World Bank. The gold imports seem to serve as a glittering border to our poverty, a cultural cost which makes our fight against poverty so handicapped.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

The analysis of urbanization in post-World War II period in Asia, and of urbanization in the Third World generally, has been vitiated by having been poured into the mould of, what has come to be widely known, as the 'over-urbanization' thesis. Taking the pattern of urbanization that developed in West Europe and North America in the nineteenth century (ending in 1914) as the norm for all urhanization in time and space, this thesis characterised urbanization in the Third World as 'over', abnormal, unhealthy and ultimately disastrous.

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N. V. Sovani

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Prices had been increasing in India throughout the 'sixties and they continued to do so as the 'sixties turned into the seventies. The index of wholesale prices (1961-62=100) climbed from an average of 188.4 in 1971-72 to an average of 254.4 in 1973-74.

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N. V. Sovani

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IN 1954 the Research Programmers Committee of the Planning Commission initiated and financed a series of socio-economic surveys of towns and cities in India with a view to study the progress of urbanization which had been particularly rapid during the preceding decade. In all 21 such surveys were carried out during the next 2-3 years and up-to-date 11 reports on these have been published. Four are available in typescript while the others are either incomplete or not available for one reason or another. Beside these surveys similar surveys of four towns and cities had been carried out in other contexts at about this time and the information for these was available and usable.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

In discussing Ranade's economic thought, we can divide the subject into two parts. The first can deal with his basic, theoretical or philosophical position, and the second with his ideas regarding Indian economic policy, and the particular policy-measure that he advocated in different spheres. It would be interesting to see whether the latter are logically consistent with each other as well as with his basic position mentioned earlier.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

This is an expository article. It states and explains the Marshalian theory of demand based on the assumption of cardinal utility. Various ambiguities in Marshall's formulation are discussed. On this background is then described the new demand theory based on in-difference curves. Here also several ambiguities are discussed and explained. The income and substitution effects of a price change are explained in a different way from that of Hicks and why Hick's exposition in this connection is not satisfactory is discussed.

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N. V. Sovani

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Information regarding human fertility in India can be derived from Census and birth registration data and from specific surveys carried out for assessing fertility. The data derived from the latter surveys are possibly the most important in this respect but as they have been only recently carried out they do not give any idea about the past trends. I have used all these below.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

The rapid pace of urbanization in recent years in India and other underdeveloped countries of South-East Asia and elsewhere has attracted considerable attention.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

The article is mainly expository in character and seeks to supplement the discussion in. the usual textbooks. It begins by distinguishing clearly between laws of returns to a factor and laws of returns to scale, explains the former and brings out why the proper way to state the law is in terms of marginal and not average physical product. It then explains why it is not quite proper to describe the laws of returns to a factor as a law of variable proportions.

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N. V. Sovani

Abstract

In this paper I present information which was collected in connection with the larger inquiry into the "Economic Benefits resulting from the Hirakud Dam", undertaken by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Poona, at the request of the Government of Orissa, in 1954.

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