| Neoclassical economics | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 July 1934 Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Nationality | USA |
| Institution | Columbia University |
| Field | International economics, globalization, free trade |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University (B.A.) MIT (Ph.D.) |
| Opposed | Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dani Rodrik |
| Influences | Robert Solow |
| Influenced | Paul Krugman |
Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati (born 26 July 1934) is an Indian-American economist and professor of economics and law at Columbia University.[1] He is well known for his research in international trade and for his advocacy of free trade.
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Bhagwati was born into a Gujarati family in Mumbai in 1934 and graduated from Sydenham College, Mumbai. He then went with "senior status" to read over two years for the BA in Economics at Cambridge (as did colleague and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen who was at Trinity College) where he was a member of St. John's College, Cambridge and received the degree in 1956. Bhagwati's experience at St John's College joined that of other eminent Indian economists including Sir Partha Dasguptha and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He received the Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967.
Bhagwati is married to Padma Desai, also a Columbia economist and Russia-specialist; they have one daughter. He is brother of P.N. Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India and also of S.N. Bhagwati, an eminent neurosurgeon. Bhagwati and Desai's joint 1970 OECD study India: Planning for Industrialization was a notable contribution at the time.
Bhagwati is a Democrat.[2]
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. [3] 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 the Supreme Court of the United States 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 the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In early 2010, Bhagwati joined the advisory board of the institute for migrant rights, Cianjur - Indonesia.[3]
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.[5]
Paul Samuelson, on the occasion of Bhagwati's 70th Birthday festschrift conference in Gainesville Florida, January 2005 said: