The Modi Government is likely to name Arvind Subramanian, the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development as its Chief Economic Advisor (CEA).
Soon after the Modi Government was sworn in, Mr. Subramanian had said in Chennai that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could well become the Deng Xiaoping of India. The India and China specialist has worked in the areas of global trade and the shifting balances of global economic power. In 2011, he had sounded the alarm on China’s economic ascendance - his claim to fame in the world of Economics for which Foreign Policy magazine included him in its world’s top 100 global thinkers for the year 2011.
The CEA’s post has been vacant since last September after Dr. Raghuram Rajan took over as Reserve Bank Governor. The Modi Government that has the economy’s revival high on its agenda presented its maiden Budget last month without a full-time senior economist on-board. The appointment could also give the Centre’s war on food price rise a key strategist as the CEA normally heads the Inter-Ministerial Group on inflation, of course if the Modi Government decides to retain it. This group has not met since Dr. Rajan’s exit last September despite inflation running high on Government’s list of priorities.
Mr. Subramanian’s past jobs include at the International Monetary Fund and the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. He has taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 1999 to 2000 and at the Johns Hopkins' School for Advanced International Studies from 2008 to 10.
The UPA Government had appointed him as a member of the Finance Minister’s Expert Group on the G-20. His CEA appointment comes even as he had critiqued Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden Budget as being optimistic on revenue targets on the one hand and failing to set deadlines for undertaking the tax and subsidy reforms mentioned in the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech. He had also flagged non-transparency in the Budget’s fiscal accounting.
Mr. Subramanian’s book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance was published in September 2011. He also co-authored Who Needs to Open the Capital Account? His book India’s Turn: Understanding the Economic Transformation was published in 2008.
“My Deng Xiaoping analogy is based on three or four reasons. Firstly, Mr. Modi represents a decisive break from dynasty rule like Deng Xiaoping broke with the madness of Mao Zedong ideology. Other two things that make me to think further on this are Mr. Modi’s decisiveness, pragmatic approach and the obsession to get things done like the Chinese reformist leader. Also, what strikes me as a parallel between the two is the kind of long-term horizon for their countries. Of course, the other parallel is that both of them have baggage. However, I hope the new government will resist the temptation to do cheap things for short-term gains and drive the bureaucracy for efficient delivery for long-term growth,” Mr. Subramanian had said addressing the Rotary Club of Madras on May 27.
Mr. Subramanian studied Economics at St. Stephens College, Delhi; obtained his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his M.Phil and D.Phil from the University of Oxford, UK.
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