Book Launch: Free Trade and Prosperity by Arvind Panagariya
The Deepak and Neera Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies is proud to celebrate the launch of Professor Arvind Panagariya’s book, Free Trade and Prosperity: How Openness Helps Developing Countries Grow Richer and Combat Poverty, published by OUP, New York. The book offers the first full-scale defense of free trade with developing countries at its center. Panagariya shows that the celebrated infant-industry and other arguments for protection fall apart when subject to logical scrutiny. He also marshals evidence to compellingly show that there is no sustained growth and poverty alleviation without outward-oriented trade policies. He offers detailed case studies of countries that have successfully transitioned into prosperity such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India and shows that low or declining barriers to trade have been critical to the success of every one of them. He systematically demolishes pro-protection and anti-free-trade arguments provided by trade skeptics in the literature. The book is an essential reading for those interested in combating poverty and promoting prosperity in developing countries.
The Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Merit E. Janow, will chair the event. Joining Dr. Panagariya for this event will be eminent trade economists Alan Deardorff of the University of Michigan and Professor Pravin Krishna of Johns Hopkins University.
About the Chair, Author and Panelists
Dean Merit E. Janow is an internationally renowned expert in international trade and investment, with extensive experience in academia, government, international organizations and business. In the past, she has served as a Member of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization. She has had a life-long involvement with Asia and is a foremost expert on that region. For the past 18 years, Professor Janow has been a Professor of Practice at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and affiliated faculty at Columbia Law School.
Professor Arvind Panagariya holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and is currently a Professor of Economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He also serves as the Director, Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia. From January 2015 until August 2017, Professor Panagariya served as the first Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog, Government of India, with the rank of Cabinet Minister. In 2012, the Government of India honored Professor Panagariya with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honors the country bestows in any field.
Professor Alan V. Deardorff is the John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He has made numerous pioneering contributions to trade theory and his scientific papers have appeared in all leading journals in Economics. He has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Labor, State, and Treasury and to international organizations including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank.
Professor Pravin Krishna is the Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University (School of Advanced International Studies and Department of Economics) and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is a leading trade theorist and empiricist of his generation and published extensively in leading journals in Economics. During 2015 to 2017, he also served as the Deputy Director of the Raj Center at Columbia University.