Krishna Bharadwaj Research Articles

Krishna Bharadwaj. Accumulation, Exchange, and Development: Essays on the Indian Economy. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 1994. 395 pages and Index. Hardbound. Indian Rs 350.00. Paperback. Indian Rs 195.00

Before her death in 1992, Professor Krishna Bharadwaj had reached the prime of her intellectual growth so that her mature thought on classical political economy and her ideas on development paradigms had begun to coalesce into a single whole. As the title of the book under review implies, this work of the late Indian economist comprises a study of the general problems of economic growth, accumulation, exchange, distribution, and development based on the theory of surplus, including its generation, appropriation, and distribution in society. The author applies classical theory to the complex development process in the developing economies, and to the specific problems of the Indian economy in the industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors.

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2019–2020

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2019–2020

Differences, Switches and ‘Consistently Side by Side’: Krishna Bharadwaj and the Sraffian Critique of Economic Theory

The study discusses Krishna Bharadwaj’s elaboration of the Sraffian critique of the currently dominating supply-and-demand equilibrium theories that are based on the marginalist approach by making use of documents from the Sraffa archive. Starting from Krishna Bharadwaj’s astute observation that the law of diminishing returns ‘was the thin end of the wedge by which the marginal analysis was introduced and generalised’ the study is concerned with Sraffa’s critique of the marginalist treatment of intensive diminishing returns and his return to a pre-marginalist and non-mechanical analysis of the intensification of land use. In the opening part of the article, the development of the friendship and collaboration between Piero Sraffa and Krishna Bharadwaj is briefly recalled, based on information provided in the correspondence files and diary entries in Sraffa’s papers. JEL Code: B24, B31, B51

White Elephants and Other Non-basic Commodities: Piero Sraffa and Krishna Bharadwaj on the Role and Significance of the Distinction between Basics and Non-basics

After the publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities ( Sraffa, 1960 ), a lot of attention was devoted to ‘reswitching’, that is to the fact that a technique is cost-minimising at two disconnected ranges of the rate of profits and not so in between these ranges. We owe Krishna Bharadwaj (1970, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Statistik, 106, 409–429) an important contribution to the debate by stating and proving a general result concerning the maximum number of switches between two techniques that have at least one switch point on the wage-frontier. She proved that the maximum number of switches coincides with the number of distinct commodities, without double counting, that enter directly or indirectly into at least one of the alternative methods of production. This means that if the alternative methods produce a commodity that is basic in both techniques, then non-basics in both techniques play no role in this, whereas if the alternative methods produce a non-basic commodity in at least one technique, then a role is played also by those non-basics that enter directly or indirectly into the production of at least one of the alternative methods of production. JEL Code: B12, B21, B31, B51, D24, D51

Krishna Bharadwaj on the Role of Expectations in Economic Theory

In this article, I discuss the approach favoured by Bharadwaj, in the tradition of classical political economy and of Sraffa, where the focus is on those factors that are observed as opposed to the subjective factors that are neither observable nor measurable. Unlike neoclassical theory, with this approach, there is no room for concepts such as ‘utility’ and the like; insofar as ‘expectations’ are conceived as subjective, non-observable entities, they are not attributed with an explanatory role in the theory of prices and distribution. Moreover, since expectation formation is seen as the effect rather than cause of behaviour, the focus shifts to those social, historical and contingent elements that seem to have a better explanatory force. In this approach, what matters is the persistence of forces leading the system to tend, in the long period, towards a position of rest. JEL Codes: B2, B31

The Interlinkages Between Paid and Unpaid Labour: A Homage to Krishna Bharadwaj

In this article, I attempt to extend Krishna Bharadwaj’s insight on interlinked rural markets to the analysis of the interlinkages between paid and unpaid economic activities; in other words, between work and employment. Specifically, I argue that the gendered division of labour in India creates much greater involvement in unpaid labour for women, which in turn has direct and pervasive implications for their involvement in paid employment. Indeed, the interlinkage between the two is so profound that it is impossible to understand trends in one without assessing trends in the other. JEL Codes: J210, J220, J46, J710

Scarcity in the Theories of Value

Building on Krishna Bharadwaj’s analysis of the differences between neoclassical economics and classical political economy and her careful historical reconstruction of the process that culminated in the birth of the former, this article focuses on the characterisation of neoclassical theories as ‘scarcity’ theories of value. The article intends, in the first place, to analyse the relation that neoclassical theories bear to earlier theoretical developments, particularly the earlier conception of value based on the demand-and-supply interaction, in which the notion of scarcity played a crucial role, a conception entertained both by pre-classical authors and contemporaries of Ricardo. In the second place, it aims to show that the scarcity conception of value is at the root of some basic inconsistencies of the neoclassical approach. Attention will thus be devoted to a particular expression of the latter, the so-called Walras–Cassel system of general equilibrium, and to the discussions that took place in the 1930s on the properties of such system—afterwards culminating in the Vienna debate over the formal properties of the system—in which the limitations of the scarcity conception of value were clearly addressed. JEL Code: B12, B13, D51

The Chosen One:Krishna Bharadwaj (1935-1992)

It is evident that Krishna Bharadwaj was not the first Indian economist to engage with classical political economy (henceforth CPE) in general or Piero Sraffa’s work in particular. She was, in her own time, the youngest of them and most consequential at that, having made CPE the centre-piece of virtually all her work. The present account of Bharadwaj’s work and persona highlights four features that seem to set her apart from other scholars. The first one is that she was completely home-grown as an economist. All her training, including doctoral study, was in India. This was by choice (see below) and unlike the case of her seniors like Arun Bose and Gautam Mathur, and contemporaries such as Sukhamoy Chakravarty and Amartya Sen. When she published her well-known review of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Sraffa 1960; henceforth PCMC) in the Indian journal Economic Weekly (see Bharadwaj 1963), she was teaching at Bombay University and had no direct exposure to Cambridge, UK.

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2015–2016

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2015–2016

Krishna Bharadwaj's “Return to Classical Theory”: an attempt towards an archaeological reconstruction

In the wake of Sraffa's ‘return to classical theory’, Krishna Bharadwaj undertook a critical reassessment of Marshall's claim to continuity with classical theory in general and Ricardo's ‘intensive margin’ in particular. Her analysis is based on an analytical separation between two distinct ways of economic reasoning: the ‘surplus based’ and the ‘demand and supply based’ theories. Calling it an ‘archaeological reconstruction’ of the history of economic theories, I will examine how such an interpretation of theoretical shifts clarifies both the presuppositions behind analysing at the ‘margin’, and hence its radical departure from the conceptual content of the classical theory.

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2013–2014

The Krishna Bharadwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2013–2014

On the Cambridge, England, Critique of the Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution

The Cambridge, England, critique of the marginal productivity theory of distribution is hard to disentangle from the related theories and developments that occurred alongside it. These include value theory, price theory, capital theory, growth theory and methodology. Indeed, in the event, I found it impossible to disentangle them and I argue in the concluding section that not being able to do so is no bad thing anyway. The economists associated with the critique – Krishna Bharadwaj, Pierangelo Garegnani, Richard Kahn, Nicholas Kaldor, Luigi Pasinetti, Joan Robinson, Piero Sraffa – were simultaneously developing their own theories of distribution to replace marginal productivity. Their theories were embodied in theories of growth and reflected the methodology associated with the critique and their own developments.

On alternative notions of change and choice: Krishna Bharadwaj's legacy

Krishna Bharadwaj, following upon the work and insights of Sraffa, made substantial contributions to our understanding of what is implied in the neoclassical notion of change and its related notion of choice; in this respect she appears closer to the spirit of Sraffa’s critique of neoclassical theory than many others. She also supplemented important elements in building an alternative approach, based on classical political economy, which is free from the need to employ marginal magnitudes and does not require hypothetical or potential changes to determine the resting positions of economic variables. Moreover, the notion of choice is rescued from the parable of ‘preferences’ and given more meaningful contents, allowing for consideration of habits, customs and power relationships. 1. Premise The consumption and production of goods is the kind of human activity to which the term ‘economic’ is applied; in most societies these activities are mediated through exchange and in capitalist societies exchange is performed in organised markets. In the history of economic thought, a range of different conceptions have been put forward to explain how individuals interact in markets and various accounts have been advanced of ways to understand which are the incentives and the constraints affecting their behaviour and decision making. In neoclassical theories, choices in consumption and production are conceptualised through reasoning at the margin. Under the ceteris paribus assumption, i.e. that everything else remains unchanged, this method provides the means to measure the effects of a small (technically, infinitesimal) variation in quantities of selected variables, such as utility and cost, which are compared with the relevant prices to determine the optimum choice by individuals. The optimal choice framework is in fact the basis upon which price and quantities are simultaneously determined in the neoclassical world.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book review in this Article Institutions, Inflation and Unemployment. By Edward J. Amadeo. Accumulation, Exchange and Development: Essays on the Indian Economy. By Krishna Bharadwaj. Adam Smith's Discθurse: Canonicity, Commerce and Conscience. By Vivienne Brown. Employment, Growth and Finance: Economic Reality and Economic Growth. Edited by Paul Davidson and J. A. Kregel. Investment Under Uncertainty. By Avinash K. Dixit and Robert S. Pindyck. Employment and Technical Change in Europe: Work Organization, Skills and Training. Edited by Ken Ducatel. New Directions in Analytical Political Economy. Edited by Amitava Krishna Dutt. Monetary Theory and Monetary Policy: New Tracks for the 1990s. Edited by Stephen F. Frowen. Competition, Technology and Money: Classical and Post‐Keynesian Perspectives. Edited by Mark A. Glick. Income and Employment in Theory and Practice. Edited by Geoffrey Harcourt, Alessandro Roncaglia and Robin Rowley. Privatisation and Regulation: A Review of the Issues. Edited by Peter M. Jackson and Catherine M. Price. Labor Economics and Industrial Relations: Markets and Institutions. Edited by Clark Kerr and Paul D. Staudohar. The Nature of Economic Thought. By Johannes J. Klant. Housing, Financial Markets and the Wider Economy. By David Miles. Bureaucracy and Public Economics. By William A. Niskanen, Jr. The Economics of Primary Commodities: Models, Analysis and Policy. Edited by David Sapsford and Wyn Morgan. Economics, Power and Culture: Essays in the Development of Radical Institutionalism. By James Ronald Stanfield. Whither Socialism? By Joseph E. Stiglitz. The Theory of Wages in Classical Economics. By Antonella Stirati. Capital and Wages: A Lakatosian History of the Wages Fund Doctrine. By John Vint. The Rocky Road to Reform: Adjustment, Income Distribution and Growth in the Developing World. Edited by Lance Taylor. Universal Banking in the Twentieth Century: Finance, Industry and the State in North and Central Europe. Edited by Alice Teichova, Terry Gourvish and Agnes Pogány. The Collected Papers of Dan Usher. Volumes I and II. By Dan Usher.

Krishna Bharadwaj, August 21, 1935 – March 8, 1992: A Memoir

(1993). Krishna Bharadwaj, August 21, 1935 – March 8, 1992: A Memoir. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics: Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 299-311.

Essays on the Commercialization of Indian Agriculture. Edited by K. N. Raj, Neeladri Bhattacharya, Sumit Guha, and Sakti Padhi. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. xxii, 354 pp. $19.95.

Of the dozen essays that comprise this volume, three are by prominent Indian economists: K.N. Raj's piece introduces the subject; Krishna Bharadwaj's theoretcial essay summarizes what has been learnt on the process of commercialization; and Amit Bhaduri offers a challenging interpretation of the differences between agricultural commercialization in the eastern and western parts of Uttar Pradesh. Other important contributors include Pradipta Chaudhuri, Sumit Guha, and Chiranjib Sen.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article Theory and Policy in Political Economy: Essays in Pricing, Distribution and Growth. Edited by Philip Arestis and Yiannis Kitromilides. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Export‐Oriented Industrialisation: The Asean Experience. By Mohamed Ariff and Hal Hill. (London, Unwin Hyman Limited, 1988, pp The Market and the State: Government Policy Towards Business In Europe, Japan and the USA. By David B. Audretsch. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989, pp Modern Business Cycle Theory. Edited by Robert J. Barro. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp The Economic Theory of Central Planning. By John Bennett. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp Themes in Value and Distribution: Classical Theory Reappraised. By Krishna Bharadwaj. (London, Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1989, pp Macroeconomics Under Debate. By Alan S. Blinder. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989, pp British Economic Policy, 1931‐49: Was There a Keynesian Revolution? By Alan Booth. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989, pp Macroeconomic Theory and Stabilization Policy. By Willem H. Buiter. (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1989, pp Wrestling with Time: Problems in Economic Theory. By Martin Currie and Ian Steedman. (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990, pp Macroeconomic Problems and Policies of Income Distribution. Edited by Paul Davidson and Jan A. Kregel. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1989, pp Current Issues in Macroeconomics. Edited by David Greenaway. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989, pp Economic Aspects of Regional Trading Arrangements. Edited by David Greenaway, Thomas Hyclak and Robert J. Thornton. (Hemel Hemp‐stead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989, pp The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations. Edited by Peter A. Hall. (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1989, pp The Making of Neoclassical Economics. By John F. Henry. (London, Unwin Hyman Limited, 1990, pp Current Issues in Microeconomics. Edited by John D. Hey. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989, pp Trade Unions, Employment, and Unemployment Duration. By Bertil Holmlund, Karl‐Gustav Loufgren and Lars Engstroum. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp Interactions in the World Economy: Perspectives from International Economic History. Edited by Carl‐Ludwig Holtfrerich. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989, pp Changing Exchange Rate Systems. Lloyds Bank Annual Review, Volume 3. Edited by Christopher Johnson. (London, Pinter Publishers Limited, 1990, pp The Political Economy of International Trade. Edited by Ronald W. Jones and Anne O. Krueger. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp The Economics of the Short Period. By Richard Kahn. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989, pp New Seeds and Poor People. By Michael Lipton with Richard Longhurst. (London, Unwin Hyman Limited, 1989, pp Reflections on Money. Edited by David T. Llewellyn. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Press Ltd. in association with the Economic Research Council, 1990, pp Current Issues in Labour Economics. Edited by David Sapsford and Zafiris Tzannatos. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989, pp Mr. Srqffa on Joint Production and Other Essays. By Bertram Schefold. (London, Unwin Hyman Limited, 1989, pp Conflict and Effective Demand in Economic Growth. By Peter Skott. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp The Balance of Payments: New Perspectives on Open‐Economy Macroeconomics. By Mark P. Taylor. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Investment Banking in Europe: Restructuring for the 1990s. By Ingo Walter and Roy C. Smith. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp

Krishna Bharadwaj and Sudipta Kaviraj (eels) Perspectives on Capitalism - Marx, Keynes, Schumpeter and Weber. New Delhi. Sage Publications. 1989. pp.265 + Index. Price: Rs 190.00 (Hardbound) and Rs 90.00 (paperbound).

As a socio-economic world system, capitalism has undergone various historical changes from its early competitive market phase to late monopo~y capitalism. In its early phase, it largely constituted a process of transition gradually emerging from the feudal mode of production, which laid heavy restrictions on the new class of rising industrialists, businessmen, and merchants. Classical economists were the ideological champions of these progressive social classes; progressive as compared to the erstwhile feudal and monarchical classes. Karl Marx's critique of capitalism was an explanation of how capitalism as a growing socio-economic organism evolved from the pre-capitalist feudal order and was leading towards higher socio-economic formations. In this analysis of the capitalist economic system, Marx laid bare its internal contradictions and its crisis-ridden anarchic production, which in his view would inevitably yield place to socialism. His thesis was confirmed by the social revolutions which occurred after his death in 1883. He was witness to a period of capitalism which produced misery and pauperization of the working classes on a large scale, and wealth and prosperity for a tiny but powerful class of capitalists of various categories.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Krishna Bharadwaj, Classical Political Economy and the Rise to Dominance of Supply and Demand Theories.Isaac Arnon, Modernization of Agriculture in Developing Countries. Resources, Potentials and Problems. Second EditionR.G. Lowe, Agricultural Revolution in Africa? Impediments to Change and Implications for Farming, for Education and for Society.C.K. Brown (ed.), Rural Development in Ghana.C.E. Barker, M.R. Bhagavan, P.V. Mitschke‐Collande and D.V. Wield, African Industrialization: Technology and Change in Tanzania.Annika Rabo, Change on the Euphrates. Villagers, Townsmen and Employees in Northeast Syria. Studies in Social Anthropology, 15M. Harper and M.F. de Jong (eds), Financing Small Enterprise. Proceedings of a Seminar organized by The Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO)Norman E. Philp, The Cash Incentive. The Economic Response of Semi‐subsistent Craftworkers in Papua New Guinea. Pacific Research Monographs 13Michael Stevenson, Wokmani: Work, Money and Discontent in Melanesia.H.D. Kopardekar, Social Aspects of Urban Development — A Case Study of the Pattern of Urban Development in the Developing Countries.David B.H. Denoon, Devaluation under Pressure: India, Indonesia and Ghana.Ann Seidman, Money, Banking and Public Finance in Africa.Ugo Fasano‐Filho, Currency Substitution and Liberalization. The Case of Argentina.Michael Posner (ed.), Problems of International Money, 1972–85. Washington DC: International Monetary FundS.J. Tambiah, Sri Lanka. Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy.Fen Hampson, Forming Economic Policy: the Case of Energy in Canada and Mexico. Studies in International Political EconomyZuhayr Mikdashi, Transnational Oil: Issues, Policies and Perspectives. Studies in International Political EconomyPoul Engberg‐Pedersen, World Bank Management of Structural Crisis in Africa: The Energy Sector, CDR Research Report 9Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Women in the International Division of Labour.Swasti Mitter, Common Fate, Common Bond:

Sraffa's Ricardo

Journal Article Sraffa's Ricardo Get access Krishna Bharadwaj Krishna Bharadwaj Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 12, Issue 1, March 1988, Pages 67–84, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.cje.a035050 Published: 01 March 1988