Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Kautilya - The True Founder Of Economics

On January 10, 2013 – I posted a write up on “KAUTILYA's Principles of Taxation and ADAM SMITH's Canon of Taxation”. The post was left open as usual for reader’s opinion. This post is different. Kindly read further to know how different it is. Thanks.

Today when I went to library and browsed some book, where I found an interesting book titled “Kautilya - The True Founder Of Economics” by Prof. Balbir Singh Sihag. 

In the book (page no. 10-11) he had given a partial list of concepts used by Chanakya alias Kautilya in his book Arthashastra (4th Century BCE). The list is as follows:

Genesis  of the Concepts in Arthashastra  during 4th Century BCE
Re-emergence of these concepts

Authour
Year
Opportunity Cost
Wieser
1889
Demand and Supply Framework
Marshall
1870
Law of Diminishing Returns
Turgot
1766
Liquidity
Keynes
1936
‘All other things being equal’
D Bernoulli
1738
Marginal Analysis
Turgot
1766
Constrained Optimization
Walras, Slutsky
1874-77, 1915
Distinction between Short Run and Long Run
Marshall
1870
Moral Hazard
Adam Smith
1776
Linear Income Tax
Mirrless
1971
Public Goods
Lindahl, Samuelson
1919, 1954
Producer Surplus
Marshall
1870
Importance of Capital Formation
Adam Smith
1776
Theory of Gains from Trade
Ricardo
1817
Crime and Punishment
Becker
1968
Efficiency Wages
Marx, Solow
1867, 1979
Risk-return Trade-off
Markowitz
1952
Asymmetric Information
Akerlof
1970
Time Inconsistency Problem.
Kyland-Presscott
1977
Non-cooperative game
Waldegrave, Nash
1713, 1951
Contigency Planning
H Stein
1996


The authour also stated that "It may be noted that the above illustratively enumerated twenty-one concepts, used in modern economic analysis, were already used and applied in Kautilya's formulations. Adam smith has the credit for only two..."


Note: The book cost Rs. 650 in Indian Market. (as mentioned in the book cover and this info is for the readers who wish to buy)