Debashree Chakraborty, Author at Adamas University

#PositiveCorona: Towards a New Alternative in Macroeconomics

Every crisis has a silver lining. It challenges people to think out of the boxes, it forges solidarity in thought and action in the most precarious of times. This pandemic is no different. A silver lining of the pandemic is that pitfalls of globalization is entering popular discourse. Popular consensus is emerging that allowing free market to wreak havoc for profit motive can never stabilize the economy. This has been debated in niche theoretical circles…however the pandemic is offering profuse empirical evidences which is challenging the mainstream discourse. State institutions should be held accountable. Markets collapse in times of crisis. Health and education cannot be left to rot. Intervention in the economy is dire necessity if we want a dignified employment, standard of living for all. Economics, macroeconomics enters precisely at this moment.

This pandemic again has brought macroeconomics to forefront. The task of comprehending and formulating policies, learning from empirical data and building theoretical frameworks is the need of the hour. Frameworks that can explain the current crisis. Frameworks that can envision a radical new.

Let us understand with the help of an example, in Indian context. A guaranteed monthly income to all households called Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been championed by many economists earlier. This pandemic has thrown people out of their jobs, seeing mass exodus of migrant workers returning to their native places without a penny. So, in these moments of crisis people should be endowed with a basic sum to insure against these hard times. Inflation i.e. state of rising prices is not a concern now. People should have money so that they can afford to buy their necessities. So here again the accountability of the government, its institutions seep in. This has become a major mainstream debate now.

The 90’s were the time when globalization and liberalization were gradually becoming universal palliatives, prescribed by the leading think tanks across the globe. But history has it, we are witnessing a time when access to education, health is becoming a major concern, health or education cannot be for the few…rather they are the pillars on which the economy stands. The economics which is taught today stands on the hallmark of globalization and liberalization, society here is taught to be comprised of rational self- utility maximizing individuals. But if that was the case, we would have never seen so much social solidarity in this pandemic, so much relief work going on during Amphan or the teaching community coming forward to take into account the plight, distress of the under privileged children. All these purviews are entering economics, as it is so closely tied with society and politics. The niche school of thoughts are slowly gaining ground, the lines of Keynes, Kalecki are becoming all the more prominent.

A hopelessly hopeful like me can think of all these positivity in the times of Corona. What I have been trying to communicate through years of teaching to my students, has been rendered very commonsensical by the pandemic.

Macroeconomics…The New Talk of The Town!

Fiscal stimulus. Economic package. Printing money. Inflation. Migrant workers. All these words are getting tossed in our platter every moment ever since the pandemic has bared its fangs. Some are difficult to comprehend until and unless the leading dailies explains them in a commonsensical way. But if there is one thing that ties all these jargons together it is economics. To be precise macroeconomics.

This pandemic again has brought macroeconomics to forefront. The task of reading and studying economics, choosing it as a career has never been more important. The task of comprehending and formulating policies, learning from empirical data and building theoretical frameworks is the need of the hour. Frameworks that can explain the current crisis. Frameworks that can envision a radical new.

As economics is a social science, it has close ties with history, politics. How society changes gets reflected into economic theories and again economic theories reflect back into society. This wheels of dialectics makes the subject alive. And if there is one aspect that can capture this diversity, it is macroeconomics.

Let us explain with an example. The current crisis has been compared by many with the Great Depression that had rocked Britain and the world in the 1930s. Lack of purchasing power of the people and hence lack of demand, unemployment became rampant at that time. To combat the crisis, revolutionary theories came up which brought to the forefront the need of government intervention to tide over the crisis. Government should spend more after its people, create jobs and other social securities and thus inject demand into the economy. This came to be known as Keynesian macroeconomics, after the economist John Maynard Keynes who was the proponent of this school of idea. This branch of economics became very popular, dominated the globe for decades and the result was the creation of welfare states across globe. However as history changed, as government intervention began to be termed as excess, welfare states started collapsing, there emerged another important school of thought in macroeconomics which is called monetarist school of idea. It championed free market, the fact that market can solve any problem, having found its most loyal crusader in Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate.

Today when we are seeing the government is announcing packages to revive the economy from doldrums, we can see Keynesian economics is standing guard again. When we see RBI is trying to boost the economy through its policy tools, it is again macroeconomics. When the plight of the migrant workers is shaming the nation as the whole, it is again macroeconomics.

So, see it is indeed a brilliant subject of specialization because it is that branch that can bridge the gap between theories and society. Sometimes while doing graduation or masters in economics, the rigorous calculations, empirics starts alienating ourselves from the society. Then is the time to resort to macroeconomics. Because this branch has mind and heart both in the right place. This branch can make you vision a new society post pandemic.

So hurry up, make economics your career and macroeconomics your specialization! After all historically pandemics have taught us to think differently!

Economics, social science, fun to read for all

Economics. A word that sparks curiosity as well as fright amongst many of us. Yes we come across these in headlines or in the front pages of the leading dailies…but the subject has an intimidating feeling which make us hesitant to delve into it deeper.

This pandemic again has brought economics to forefront. We are hearing, seeing so many policy prescriptions to combat the crisis. While some say the government should print new money others are of the opinion that it will lead to inflation. Some we understand, many we don’t. All because we don’t want to delve deeper into the spiral of economic jargons, that we feel, a little bit tough for us to understand.

Today, economics has made our lives easier. Be it in the form of e-commerce, or e-payment, or e-shopping, or in the form of online shopping portals like, e-bay. Everybody would definitely admit, that all the so called “E” in our lives, or the words prefixed with “E” is making our life easier every day.

Economics is a social science. It has close ties with history, politics. How society changes gets reflected into economic theories and again economic theories reflect back into society. This wheels of dialectics makes the subject alive.

Just look around you. The time that we are going through during this coronavirus pandemic is a very bad time for economy. Be it of the world, or for our country. Everybody is in a tough economic situation. States as well as individual persons are being directly affected by this current economic condition. People are losing their jobs, companies are compelled to cut job, salaries are slashed, businesses are down, ground workers, daily laborers are fearing whether they would get the same daily wage after the pandemic is over. Economists are researching and suggesting the governments to take new steps to harness the down falling economy.

In a way, everybody is affected. Whether it is a daily wage earner, or a salaried person, or a businessman. You, me, we, us, just everyone.

In a time like this, it has become really important for everyone to understand what the current economic situation is demanding from them. Now is the very time to learn more about economy and economics.

Yes, I know that sometimes economics can get tedious, due to its usage of mathematics and calculations and everything that we fear the most. But you should know that, they are just the tools that are used to learn more about the subject. Tools to analyze results. Don’t let them demoralize you. Because as an economist your ultimate aim is to explain the logic and story behind the mathematics, data. Just like the archaeologists, who use many tools to dig the long lost articles of history within the earth, but their ultimate aim is to know about them, not to dig, with their shovels and all.

Lastly, I would like to say, just embrace the subject of economics. Because, for economics, the world is the laboratory, where you can and will tread upon in search of new possibilities, and don’t get confined in a laboratory room like other subjects to find out something that’s yet to be found.

It’s just like the adventurer who has set out on a voyage of the unknown, to see new places, learn new things, which will ultimately help him in achieving something no one has ever achieved and let him prosper like no one has ever been.

So, embark into the ship of economics to be on that unique voyage that would let you shape the economy of the world as well as your country, and your career.