KP Kannan - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by KP Kannan
While India has embarked on a high growth path that has received considerable international atten... more While India has embarked on a high growth path that has received considerable international attention, the plight of the working poor continues to be a heated subject in public debates within the country. Two major and recent initiatives for providing social security to the workers in the informal economy, as a legally guaranteed right, marks an important turnaround in the emerging developmental policy in the country. This note briefly discusses these two initiatives. The first is the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) and the second relates to the Social Security for Unorganised (Informal) Sector Workers. Both these were promises made in the election manifesto of the current United Progressive Alliance Government. The NREG has already been enacted by the Indian Parliament and the second one is in the initial stages of enactment.
In this paper, we attempt at an analysis of the political economy of the Indian power sector with... more In this paper, we attempt at an analysis of the political economy of the Indian power sector with special reference to Kerala in the light of a generic model of the political economy of public utilities we develop in the first part of the paper. The model seeks to explain the political economy of the rent seeking drives in a non-Smithian imperfect regime of self-interest maximisation, with a regulatory structure of the public utility described in a framework of the principal-agent relationship. In contrast to the usual neo-classical monolithic representation of principal and agent, we characterise each entity in a Marxian-Kaleckian vein, as a composite set of conflicting sectional interests. This helps us develop a comprehensive perspective of the politico-economic implications of the relationship among the public, government and utility. Based on this generic model, we seek to analyse, in the second part of the paper, the political economy of the power sector in India, with emphasi...
Delays in project implementation and the attendant cost overruns have been a regular feature in t... more Delays in project implementation and the attendant cost overruns have been a regular feature in the electric power sector in Kerala. Almost all the public projects, including the prestigious major hydroelectric project of Idukki, have been the unfortunate victims of time and cost overruns on account of a number of avoidable factors, labour disputes being singled out as the prime villain. In this paper we take up a detailed analysis of the cost of inefficiency involved in the time and cost overruns in the power projects of the KSEB, and their possible causes. We find that the arguments by the government in favour of private sector participation in power generating capacity addition, under the pretext of a severe resources crunch, is flimsy to the extent that the government is actually over-spending on each of the projects undertaken. We find that the real problem arises not out of a shrinking coffer but out of the inefficiency of management coupled with the political economy of vicio...
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
Reflections on the Right to Development, 2005
Development and Change, 2011
One of India's finest economists, the late lamented K.N. Raj (1924-2010), was known for his deep ... more One of India's finest economists, the late lamented K.N. Raj (1924-2010), was known for his deep concern for the poor. Long before 'inclusive growth' became a clichéd byword of growth managers and power brokers, he passionately believed it to be the core of economic growth. That concern lasted till his death. Raj's initiation as a professional economist virtually coincided with India becoming independent. He landed in Bombay (now Mumbai) in July 1947, after securing a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics at the preciously young age of twenty-three, and joined the Reserve Bank of India as an economist. In his new capacity he prepared India's first Balance of Payments status paper, but he was soon inducted into the Indian Planning Commission and got himself involved in the formulation of the country's First Five Year Plan. But Raj had the vocation of a teacher and a researcher which explains why he left a lucrative government job and joined the Delhi School of Economics in 1953. To his multitude of students he was a teacher par excellence but he also established himself as an economist of repute, both nationally and internationally, at an early age. He was closely associated with, and made considerable contributions to, the growth of three major institutions. The first was the creation of the Mumbai-based weekly, Economic Weekly (later renamed Economic and Political Weekly), a unique journal that combined commentaries on contemporary economic and political issues with wellresearched 'Special Articles' on development issues in general and economic development in particular. The second was the Delhi School of Economics which he took to new heights by attracting brilliant economists to join its faculty. The third, and a much bolder experiment, was the establishment of a centre of excellence, the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), in I am grateful to Ashwani Saith for encouraging me to write this paper. I thank Barbara Harriss-White and M.K. Das for detailed comments and editorial suggestions on an earlier version; I also thank Jan Breman, Gerry Rodgers, J. Krishnamurty, T.S. Papola, K.T. Rammohan, and K. Ravi Raman for their comments and suggestions. A special word of thanks is due to Anil Kumar of the Centre for Development Studies Library for his assistance in locating and making available copies of earlier papers and works of Professor Raj. However, the author alone is responsible for views, interpretations and errors, if any.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
Journal of Social and Economic Development
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
This paper is an extended review article to discuss the currently fashionable opinion among the n... more This paper is an extended review article to discuss the currently fashionable opinion among the neoliberal scholars as well as influential policy makers and advisers that the ‘Gujarat Model’ of growth is something that ought to be emulated by the rest of India in its quest for rapid economic transformation. A close and careful reading of the articles included in the volume brings out both the exclusionary and inequalizing nature of otherwise high overall economic growth in Gujarat and its less than admirable performance in human and social development indicators. Gujarat is not one of the worst performing states in India either by growth, poverty reduction or social or human development. But certainly it is not in the top league in any of these except aggregate economic growth. By a careful comparison of Gujarat and Kerala the paper also seeks to demolish the claim made by Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya that Gujarat has outperformed in Kerala not only in growth but also in social sector development.
This paper attempts an economic evaluation of the Kuttanad Development Project (henceforth referr... more This paper attempts an economic evaluation of the Kuttanad Development Project (henceforth referred to as KDP) whioh is part of an overall programme of the Government of Kerala to augment the Production' of paddy in the state. The paper highlights two important aspects: one 'pertaining to the methodology of project evaluation, and tho other pertaining to curtain aspects of policy. [Working Paper No. 028]
Economic and Political Weekly, 2001
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
While India has embarked on a high growth path that has received considerable international atten... more While India has embarked on a high growth path that has received considerable international attention, the plight of the working poor continues to be a heated subject in public debates within the country. Two major and recent initiatives for providing social security to the workers in the informal economy, as a legally guaranteed right, marks an important turnaround in the emerging developmental policy in the country. This note briefly discusses these two initiatives. The first is the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) and the second relates to the Social Security for Unorganised (Informal) Sector Workers. Both these were promises made in the election manifesto of the current United Progressive Alliance Government. The NREG has already been enacted by the Indian Parliament and the second one is in the initial stages of enactment.
In this paper, we attempt at an analysis of the political economy of the Indian power sector with... more In this paper, we attempt at an analysis of the political economy of the Indian power sector with special reference to Kerala in the light of a generic model of the political economy of public utilities we develop in the first part of the paper. The model seeks to explain the political economy of the rent seeking drives in a non-Smithian imperfect regime of self-interest maximisation, with a regulatory structure of the public utility described in a framework of the principal-agent relationship. In contrast to the usual neo-classical monolithic representation of principal and agent, we characterise each entity in a Marxian-Kaleckian vein, as a composite set of conflicting sectional interests. This helps us develop a comprehensive perspective of the politico-economic implications of the relationship among the public, government and utility. Based on this generic model, we seek to analyse, in the second part of the paper, the political economy of the power sector in India, with emphasi...
Delays in project implementation and the attendant cost overruns have been a regular feature in t... more Delays in project implementation and the attendant cost overruns have been a regular feature in the electric power sector in Kerala. Almost all the public projects, including the prestigious major hydroelectric project of Idukki, have been the unfortunate victims of time and cost overruns on account of a number of avoidable factors, labour disputes being singled out as the prime villain. In this paper we take up a detailed analysis of the cost of inefficiency involved in the time and cost overruns in the power projects of the KSEB, and their possible causes. We find that the arguments by the government in favour of private sector participation in power generating capacity addition, under the pretext of a severe resources crunch, is flimsy to the extent that the government is actually over-spending on each of the projects undertaken. We find that the real problem arises not out of a shrinking coffer but out of the inefficiency of management coupled with the political economy of vicio...
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
Reflections on the Right to Development, 2005
Development and Change, 2011
One of India's finest economists, the late lamented K.N. Raj (1924-2010), was known for his deep ... more One of India's finest economists, the late lamented K.N. Raj (1924-2010), was known for his deep concern for the poor. Long before 'inclusive growth' became a clichéd byword of growth managers and power brokers, he passionately believed it to be the core of economic growth. That concern lasted till his death. Raj's initiation as a professional economist virtually coincided with India becoming independent. He landed in Bombay (now Mumbai) in July 1947, after securing a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics at the preciously young age of twenty-three, and joined the Reserve Bank of India as an economist. In his new capacity he prepared India's first Balance of Payments status paper, but he was soon inducted into the Indian Planning Commission and got himself involved in the formulation of the country's First Five Year Plan. But Raj had the vocation of a teacher and a researcher which explains why he left a lucrative government job and joined the Delhi School of Economics in 1953. To his multitude of students he was a teacher par excellence but he also established himself as an economist of repute, both nationally and internationally, at an early age. He was closely associated with, and made considerable contributions to, the growth of three major institutions. The first was the creation of the Mumbai-based weekly, Economic Weekly (later renamed Economic and Political Weekly), a unique journal that combined commentaries on contemporary economic and political issues with wellresearched 'Special Articles' on development issues in general and economic development in particular. The second was the Delhi School of Economics which he took to new heights by attracting brilliant economists to join its faculty. The third, and a much bolder experiment, was the establishment of a centre of excellence, the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), in I am grateful to Ashwani Saith for encouraging me to write this paper. I thank Barbara Harriss-White and M.K. Das for detailed comments and editorial suggestions on an earlier version; I also thank Jan Breman, Gerry Rodgers, J. Krishnamurty, T.S. Papola, K.T. Rammohan, and K. Ravi Raman for their comments and suggestions. A special word of thanks is due to Anil Kumar of the Centre for Development Studies Library for his assistance in locating and making available copies of earlier papers and works of Professor Raj. However, the author alone is responsible for views, interpretations and errors, if any.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
Journal of Social and Economic Development
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
This paper is an extended review article to discuss the currently fashionable opinion among the n... more This paper is an extended review article to discuss the currently fashionable opinion among the neoliberal scholars as well as influential policy makers and advisers that the ‘Gujarat Model’ of growth is something that ought to be emulated by the rest of India in its quest for rapid economic transformation. A close and careful reading of the articles included in the volume brings out both the exclusionary and inequalizing nature of otherwise high overall economic growth in Gujarat and its less than admirable performance in human and social development indicators. Gujarat is not one of the worst performing states in India either by growth, poverty reduction or social or human development. But certainly it is not in the top league in any of these except aggregate economic growth. By a careful comparison of Gujarat and Kerala the paper also seeks to demolish the claim made by Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya that Gujarat has outperformed in Kerala not only in growth but also in social sector development.
This paper attempts an economic evaluation of the Kuttanad Development Project (henceforth referr... more This paper attempts an economic evaluation of the Kuttanad Development Project (henceforth referred to as KDP) whioh is part of an overall programme of the Government of Kerala to augment the Production' of paddy in the state. The paper highlights two important aspects: one 'pertaining to the methodology of project evaluation, and tho other pertaining to curtain aspects of policy. [Working Paper No. 028]
Economic and Political Weekly, 2001
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.