The Reserve Bank of India instituted a lecture series in 2004 in memory of Professor Palahalli Ramaiya Brahmananda in view of his relentless commitment to teaching, his seminal contributions to research in economics, particularly monetary economics, and his long association with the Reserve Bank of India. The first lecture in the series titled ''Drains, Hoards and Foreigners: Does the Nineteenth Century Indian Economy have any Lessons for the Twenty First Century India?'' was delivered by Lord Meghnad Desai, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, on September 20, 2004.
Born in 1926, Professor Brahmananda was the son of P.
R. Ramaiya, a well-known Kannada journalist and freedom fighter of princely State
of Mysore, who owned and edited Tainadu and Daily News. His mother, P. R. Jayalakshamma,
was the Deputy Mayor of Bangalore. After completing his graduation from Maharaja's
College, University of Mysore, he joined the University of Mumbai (then University
of Bombay). His proclivity for academic pursuits prompted him to opt out of a career
in the prestigious Indian Administrative Services in 1949-50 despite securing a
high rank. He was also awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1956, which,
for some reasons, he could not take up. Professor Brahmananda started his career
as a research assistant to Professor C. N. Vakil, and later established himself
as a distinguished professor of economics in the University of Mumbai. Professor
Brahmananda was the first RBI Professor of Monetary Economics in Department of Economics,
University of Mumbai. During his stint at the University, Professor Brahmananda
held several distinguished positions, viz., Director of Bombay School of Economics,
President of the Indian Economic Association, President of the Society of Labour
Economics, and President of the International Economic Association. He also served
as a Visiting Professor at the Delhi School of Economics, Research Fellow at the
University Grants Commission and Indian Council of Social Science Research, and
Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Social and Economic Change and the Indian Statistical
Institute, Bangalore.
Even though Professor Brahmananda's contributions enriched almost all the areas
of economics, monetary economics remained his forte. His major contribution to economic
theory was the reconstruction of classical economics for developing countries. He
carried out a parallel exercise to the 'Sraffa Revolution' in search of an invariant
measure of value and is credited with enriching the monetary traditions of India.
In the area of monetary theory, Professor Brahmananda brought into focus the effect
of commodity hoarding on output and prices in developing countries. He also developed
general theory of the rate of interest incorporating Bohm-Bawerk's idea of time
preference , Schumpeterian concepts of innovation and productivity growth and the
Sraffian principles of distribution shifts. He viewed the problems of welfare economics
and development from an extended Classical and Marshallian angle, and provided conceptual
refinements to many precepts of welfare economics. True to the tradition of development
economics, Professor Brahmananda maintained a keen interest in the regional perspectives
of development and international benchmarking. As an enthusiastic practitioner of
applied econometrics, he treaded on the prudent path of empirically validating economic
theories. He was also well informed on important developments in sociology, political
science and history. As a researcher, he was uncompromising and often waged a lonely
battle in the world of ideas. In the heydays of planning, his dissenting notes on
many policy issues - a rarity in those times - bear testimony to the strength of
his convictions.
While he remained aloof from administrative positions in the Government, Professor
Brahmananda did not remain confined to the realm of theories alone. The 'wage-goods
model' of the 1950s developed in association with Professor C. N. Vakil provided
an alternative to the Mahalanobis model of development. In 1974, he also took the
lead in the preparation of a memorandum to the Government of India on measures to
bring down the rising rate of inflation. He left his mark on debates relating to
several aspects of the Indian economy ranging from the economic structure, investment
priorities, choice of techniques, market intervention, interest and exchange rate
policies, bank nationalisation, public finance policy, population policy, employment
programmes and the public distribution system. The crystallisation of his ideas
took the shape of a body of thought popularly known as the 'Bombay School of Thought'.
Professor Brahmananda's writings spanning more than five decades make a fascinating
story. He has nearly thirty books and more than six hundred articles to his credit.
Some of his famous books / monographs include: 'Planning for a Shortage Economy'
and 'Planning for an Expanding Economy' (both jointly with Professor C. N. Vakil),
'Studies in the Economics of Welfare Maximisation', 'Explorations in the New Classical
Theory of Political Economy and a Connected Critique of Economic Theory', 'Planning
for Wage Goods Economy', 'A Framework for an Optimum Monetary and Banking System',
'Growthless Inflation by Means of Stockless Money - A New Classical Treatise on
Rising Prices' and 'Gold Money Rift - A Classical Treatise on International Liquidity'.
In 1980, he prepared a widely discussed monograph on 'The IMF Loan and India's Economic
Future'.
The Reserve Bank availed of the opportunity to engage such a prolific mind into
writing the monetary history of India for the period from 1835 to 1900. This work
broadly structured in the framework of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz (i.e.,
'Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom - their Relation to
Income, Prices and Interest Rates: 1867-1975', Chicago University, 1983 and 'A Monetary
History of the United States 1867-1960', Princeton - 1963), is one of the most pioneering
works in the area of monetary economics in India. Professor Brahmananda completed
the daunting task of collecting monetary data for the nineteenth century. Apart
from recording history on the development of classical monetary and international
trade theory, the work compels a relook at various debates that had attracted the
attention of the monetary experts.
His sad demise on January 23, 2003 has left a void in the Indian economic world.
A friend to his students, a visionary with a global outlook, a man engaged in the
battle of ideas, were the many facets of the man who lived his life like a sage
and inspired generations of students, many of whom have distinguished themselves
in the areas of public policy and academia.
Professor P.R. Brahmananda Memorial Lectures delivered so far: