Palahalli Ramaiya Brahmananda

Palahalli Ramaiya Brahmananda (27 September 1926 – 23 January 2003) was an Indian monetary economist. He co-developed the Wage Goods Model with Chandulal Nagindas Vakil in 1956 and took part in India's anti-inflation policies during the economic crisis of the 1970s. He has published over 150 books and 1,000 articles.

Early life and education

Brahmananda was born on 27 September 1926 in the Kingdom of Mysore as the eldest of four children to P.R. Ramaiya (a former Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and Kannada journalist) and P.R. Jayalakshamma (a former deputy mayor of Bengaluru).

Career

Brahmananda joined Mumbai University as a research assistant in 1949. In 1953, he earned his PhD under the guidance of D.T. Lakdawala with his thesis "Studies in Economics of Welfare Maximisation". It was later published as a monograph by the Bombay University Press.

Brahmananda worked at Mumbai University for 37 years. He would eventually become the Reserve Bank of India Endowment Professor in Monetary Economics in 1962 and the Director of the Department of Economics in 1976. He retired from the department in 1986.

Brahmananda and Vakil argued that the plan's strategy was inequitable and that, in a capital-deficient economy such as India, it would result in insufficient investment in other sectors. They further contended that the approach would generate inflation as rising incomes increased demand for consumer goods. As an alternative to the Mahalanobis strategy underpinning the Second Five-Year Plan, they proposed the Wage Goods Model. The Wage Goods Model prioritised goods commonly consumed by wage earners, including food grains, dairy products, fish, eggs, meat, salt, sugar, soap, and medicines, as well as basic services such as education, healthcare, and electricity. Brahmananda was the editor of the Indian Economic Journal almost since its inception in 1952–53. According to American economist Robert Solow, the book was "a work of remarkable scope for a single scholar to write." His last work, 'Money, Income, Prices in 19th Century India', is a historical and theoretical study.

Brahmananda died on 23 January 2003 at the age of 76 in his home in Bengaluru. The Financial Express called him the "unsung hero of Indian economics" and said that "his knowledge of economic theory and the grip on empirical economics was almost encyclopedic."

In 2004, the Reserve Bank of India instituted the P R Brahmananda Memorial Lecture Series in his memory.