The Banking Executive, Issue 155, November 2021

Can Economics Keep Up? Can Economics Keep Up? As technology advances and the en- vironment changes, some of the key assumptions underpinning main- stream economic thinking will be- come obsolete. To reverse the public's loss of confidence in the dis- cipline, economists must get back to doing what made the field so valu- able in the first place. When the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, a journalist is said to have asked them, “Between the two of you, who is the more talented?” Comparing musical and economic talent is in many ways meaningless. But Shankar offered an interesting re- sponse: “Teach me economics for a week and ask me to give a lecture; I will manage it without making a fool of myself. Now, teach my friend Amartya to play the sitar for a week and ask him to give a public perform- ance….” The story is probably apocryphal. Nonetheless, it highlights a distinc- tive feature of economics. In many academic disciplines, it is difficult for someone who lacks a reasonable the BANKING EXECUTIVE 30 ISSUE 155 NOVEMBER 2021