Islamabad, 8 Aug.: After the successful launch in Lahore of Lord Meghnad Desai’s recently published book Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One, Oxford University Press launched the renowned economist’s book in Islamabad. The book explores the reasons for the failure of economists to anticipate the global financial crisis and mitigate the impact of the ensuing recession. The author investigates the evolution of economics and maps its trajectory against the occurrence of major political events to provide a definitive answer. Desai underscores the contribution of hubris to economists’ calamitous lack of foresight, and he makes a persuasive case for the profession to re-engage with the history of economic thought.
Meghnad Desai is Emeritus Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, where he was also founder and former director of the Global Governance Research Centre. He is a member of the House of Lords and chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.
The evening featured a stimulating discussion between Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, and Lord Desai. During the conversation, the author emphasized on the notion that one over-arching paradigm cannot resolve all economic eventualities while urging that an array of already-available theories and approaches be considered anew for the insights they may provide toward preventing future economic catastrophes.
In his closing remarks, the chief guest, Mr Sartaj Aziz, National Security and Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, lauded the author for making a persuasive case in his book for the economists to re-engage with the history of economic thought.
The launch was followed by a talk on the book Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt written by Lady Kishwar Desai who is an author and columnist. During her talk on book, which is a biography of the iconic Indian film actors Nargis and Sunil Dutt, Kishwar Desai said that apart from narrating one of the legendary love stories of India's film world, the book tells the larger story of the history and evolution of Hindi cinema and of a society and a nation in the throes of change.
Kishwar Desai’s first novel, Witness the Night won the Costa Book Award in 2010 for Best First Novel and has been translated into over 25 languages. She had previously worked in television as anchor/producer. Kishwar’s columns and articles have been published in several international newspapers.
Earlier in her welcome address, Ameena Saiyid, Managing Director, Oxford University Press Pakistan, while introducing Lord Desai said that his views diverge from the contemporary orthodoxies, and he has been consistently critical of the kind of free market neo-classical tropes that have dominated discourse since the 1980s and which have been blamed for the Crisis of 2008. “It is his book on that Crisis, and the avoidance of such crises in the future, which we are launching here today.” she added.
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