Lal, Deepak 1940- (Deepak Kumar Lal)

PERSONAL:

Born January 3, 1940, in Lahore, Punjab, India; son of Nand and Shanti Lal; married Barbara Ballis, 1971; children: Deepika, Akshay. Ethnicity: "South Asian (India)." Education: St. Stephens College, Delhi, India, B.A. (with honors), 1959; Jesus College, Oxford, M.A., 1962, B.Phil., 1965. Politics: "None." Hobbies and other interests: Opera, theater, tennis, and bridge.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England; and Los Angeles, CA. Office—Department of Economics, 8369 Bunche Hall, University of California, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024-1301; fax: 310-825-9528. Agent—Frances Kelley, 111 Clifton Rd., Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey KT2 6PL, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Oxford University, Oxford, England, lecturer at Christ Church, 1966-69, research fellow at Nuffield College, 1968-70; University of London, London, England, lecturer, 1970-79, reader, 1979-84, professor of political economy, 1984-93; University of California, Los Angeles, James S. Coleman Professor of International Development Studies, 1991—. Indian Foreign Service, affiliate, serving in New Delhi and in Tokyo, Japan, 1963-66; World Bank, research administrator in Washington, DC, 1983-87; consultant to Indian Planning Commission on New Delhi and to Ministries of Planning of Korea and Sri Lanka.

WRITINGS:

Wells and Welfare: An Exploratory Cost-Benefit Study of the Economics of Small-Scale Irrigation in Maharashtra, Development Center, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris, France), 1972.

Methods of Project Analysis: A Review, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Washington, DC), 1974.

(Coauthor) Appraising Foreign Investment in Developing Countries, Heinemann Educational (London, England), 1975.

Unemployment and Wage Inflation in Industrial Economies, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris, France), 1977.

(With A. Heap and others) Men or Machines: A Study of Labour-Capital Substitution in Road Construction in the Philippines, International Labour Office (Geneva, Switzerland), 1978.

Market Access for Semi-Manufactures from Developing Countries, Sijthoff (Leiden, Netherlands), 1979.

Prices for Planning: Towards the Reform of Indian Planning, Heinemann (London, England), 1980.

Resurrection of the Pauper-Labour Argument, Trade Policy Research Centre (London, England), 1981.

The Poverty of "Development Economics," Institute of Economic Affairs (London, England), 1983, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1985, expanded edition, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

The Real Effects of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Policies: An Extension of the Australian Adjustment Model, World Bank (Washington, DC), 1984.

(With Paul Collier) Labour and Poverty in Kenya: 1900-1980, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor, with Martin Wolf) Stagflation, Savings, and the State: Perspectives on the Global Economy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation: India, c. 1500 B.C.-A.D. 1980, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988, revised and abridged edition published as The Hindu Equilibrium: India c. 1500 B.C.-2000 A.D., 2005.

Aspects of Indian Labour, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Sarath Rajapatirana) Impediments to Trade Liberalization in Sri Lanka, Gower (Brookfield, VT), 1989.

Nationalised Universities: Paradox of the Privatisation Age, Centre for Policy Studies (London, England), 1989.

(Editor, with Maurice Scott) Public Policy and Economic Development: Essays in Honour of Ian Little, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) Development Economics, four volumes, Edward Elgar (Brookfield, VT), 1992.

The Repressed Economy: Causes, Consequences, Reform, Edward Elgar (Brookfield, VT), 1993.

Against Dirigisme: The Case for Unshackling Economic Markets, ICS Press (San Francisco, CA), 1994.

(With D.K. Joshi) From Closed to Open Economy Macroeconomics: The Real Exchange Rate and Capital Inflows, India, 1981-1994, National Council of Applied Economic Research (New Delhi, India), 1994.

(With H. Myint) The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: A Comparative Study, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

(Coauthor) Australian Competition Policy: Deregulation or Reregulation?, Institute of Public Affairs (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1998.

Unfinished Business: India in the World Economy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Richard H. Snape) Trade, Development, and Political Economy: Essays in Honour of Anne O. Krueger, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2001.

In Praise of Empires: Globalization and Order, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2004.

Trade and Industrial Policy: Classical Liberalism and the New Dirigisme, edited by George G. Djolov, Chambers of Commerce and Industry South Africa (Sandton, South Africa), 2005.

Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the Twenty-first Century, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2006.

Also author of shorter works such as pamphlets and booklets.

SIDELIGHTS:

Deepak Lal is the author of The Poverty of "Development Economics." Paul Buteux, a reviewer for Perspective, commented that the book "should be accessible to anyone with some degree of economic literacy and an interest in the problems of development" and "should be valuable at the college level to all interested in the policy issues of the developing world."

C.A. Bayly, a contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, commented that Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation: India, c. 1500 B.C.-A.D. 1980 "caught the tide of the new Indian economics" and "provided it with a historical theory." Bayly observed that "whatever the judgment on Rajiv's new economics, Deepak Lal's brilliant, Babur-like cavalry dash across the whole terrain of Indian social and economic history will remain a talking-point for years to come." J.T. Peach, a reviewer in Choice, commented that Lal "has written the most penetrating analysis of the economy and society" of India in many years.

Lal turned his attention closer to British politics in Nationalised Universities: Paradox of the Privatisation Age. Bruce Pattison, a reviewer in Contemporary Re-view, observed that Lal was "not amused by the paradox that a government which is transferring most public services to private enterprise is tightening the state's grip on universities." Pattison wrote that Lal "discusse[d] [the issues] lucidly, and persuasively" and was a "useful contribution to the debate on higher education." Of Against Dirigisme: The Case for Unshackling Economic Markets, Arthur Seldon commented in the Times Literary Supplement that Lal wrote of "economics in plain English with a light touch that will delight the general reader and attract students to" economics. Seldon commented that Lal's "argument is that government itself has endangered the rule of law."

The results of a "multi-country" World Bank study can be read in The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: A Comparative Study. The study encompassed twenty-one countries between 1950 and 1985. According to Arne Bigsten, a reviewer in the Journal of Development Studies, the book "compares the development of pairs of countries with similar starting conditions with regard to their growth, equity and poverty experiences." Bigsten reported that the book is "an excellent source of information about post-war development in the Third World." J.E. Weaver, a reviewer in Choice, considered the book "likely to become basic to the study of economic development."

Another book, Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance, was described by Foreign Affairs contributor Richard N. Cooper as "a breathtaking gallop through the history of the world's major civilizations." Francis Fukuyama, a reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement, observed that Lal should "be commended for making the attempt in the first place." Fukuyama also commented that Lal "has written a sweeping and … magisterial book about the cultural and political bases of economic development."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, November, 1986, E. Marcus, review of Stagflation, Savings, and the State: Perspectives on the Global Economy, p. 529; September, 1989, J.T. Peach, review of Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation: India, c. 1500 B.C.-A.D. 1980, p. 189; April, 1997, J.R. Weaver, review of The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: A Comparative Study, p. 1388.

Contemporary Review, April, 1989, Bruce Pattison, review of Nationalised Universities: Paradox of the Privatisation Age, pp. 217-218.

Foreign Affairs, November, 1998, Richard N. Cooper, review of Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance, p. 147.

Journal of Development Studies, August, 1997, Arne Bigsten, review of The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth, pp. 874-875.

Perspective, July-August, 1986, Paul Buteux, review of The Poverty of "Development Economics," p. 118.

Times Literary Supplement, September 8, 1989, C.A. Bayly, review of The Hindu Equilibrium, p. 978; January 26, 1996, Arthur Seldon, review of Against Dirigisme: The Case for Unshackling Economic Markets, p. 14; June 18, 1999, Francis Fukuyama, review of Unintended Consequences, pp. 5-6.