Tamil Nadu and its cast of economic advisors

The newly-elected Tamil Nadu government has appointed an economic advisory council which includes some of the finest economists working on India. Esther Duflo is a Nobel Laureate and has done pioneering work on evidence-based policymaking

The newly-elected Tamil Nadu government has appointed an economic advisory council which includes some of the finest economists working on India. Esther Duflo is a Nobel Laureate and has done pioneering work on evidence-based policymaking. Raghuram Rajan was among the few who anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis, and has served both in the ministry of finance and as governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Arvind Subramanian, as chief economic advisor, brought in new insights on the twin balance sheet crisis as well as the idea of “stigmatised capitalism” in the government’s annual economic surveys. Jean Dreze is India’s most rooted welfare economist, and was a key architect of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. And S Narayan has been an economist-administrator. Mr Rajan, Mr Subramanian, and Mr Narayan also happen to trace their roots to the state.

Nobel laureate Esther Duflo. (File photo)

By bringing in these economists within the ambit of policymaking, the state government has done well. It has signalled an openness to expertise. It has also brought in a set of advisors from distinct intellectual traditions, which can lead to well-considered and non-dogmatic recommendations. And, if the experiment succeeds, it has shown other states that they can tap into global talent to determine their economic trajectory within the larger Union.

At the same time, there have been such high-profile announcements in the past, but they have been used largely as a branding exercise — both for the concerned chief minister and for economists. And that is why the real test for the Tamil Nadu economic advisory council is in the work that it does, the consistency with which it engages with the issues of the state, and the policy impact — in terms of real outcomes — that it is able to achieve working with the state government.