Price of onions / Ashok V. Desai.

Includes index.

1. The dance of prices
2. Nuts and bolts of Bliss
3. Throes of creation
4. The universal lubricant
5. The lawful robber.

Ashok V Desai is a thinker with a difference. He has the Unique ability to give from to theory and to translate ideas into practice. He is a commentator who matches wit with lucidity, and simplicity with depth. Comment is only his latest pursuit. As student in Cambridge, he explored the rise of Germany as an economic power in the nineteenth century; he then went to teach in Oxford, Bombay and the University of the South Pacific in Suva. He showed that India's attempts to replace technology imports were actually slowing down its development. He suggested giving import licences to exporters and letting them sell them-an idea P. Chidamabram used in 1992 as a first step to trade liberalization. That led Manmohan Singh to take him as adviser in the fiancne ministry, where he helped design the first liberal reforms and unshackle the economy. Desai is an unashamed proponent of Competition and free markets. He demonstrates a mastery of the instruments of policy to spread prosperity. His command of data, his roving knowledge of the past and present, and his incisive reasoning make a formidable repertoire. He uses those skills in this book of help non-economists penetrate some economic thickets and have fun doing so.