User:Ranjitlall/Sanjaya Lall

Sanjaya Lall (13 December 1940 - 18 June 2005) was a development economist, Professor of Economics and Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford University. Lall's research interests included the impact of foreign direct investment in developing countries, the economics of multi-national corporations, and the development of technological capability and industrial competitiveness in developing countries. One of the world's pre-eminent development economists, Lall was also one of the founding editors of the journal Oxford Development Studies and a senior economist at the World Bank (1965-68 and 1985-87).

Biography
Lall was born in Patna, India, and graduated from Patna University in 1960 with a BA in economics, standing first in the university. He then took a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from St. John's College, Oxford University in 1963, and an MPhil in economics in 1965.

Lall's career began working as an economist at the World Bank (1965-68). Apart from a two-year return to the bank in the mid-1980s, Oxford remained his home, where he served first as Junior, then as Senior, Research Officer at the Institute of Economics and Statistics for over 30 years; as a University Lecturer in Development Economics at Queen Elizabeth House; as a Fellow of Green College since 1982; and as Professor of Development Economics since 1999. In addition, he was course director of Development Studies at Oxford and one of the founding editors of the journal Oxford Development Studies. He was one of the most productive economists at the university, writing or co-authoring 33 books between 1975 and 2003, publishing 75 listed articles in reputable refereed professional journals, 72 chapters in books, 67 reports for international agencies or governments, and another 27 articles. He also acted as adviser or consultant to a wide spectrum of governments and international development organisations, from the World Bank, Unicef and the OECD to the European Commission and the Commonwealth Secretariat; he served as the Principal Consultant to Unctad (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) on its World Investment Report, and to Unido (the United Nations Industrial Development Organization) on its Industrial Development Report.

Academic contributions
Lall made contributions to development economics in three major areas. The first of these came early in the form of pioneering work on transfer pricing by multinational enterprises, based especially on an empirical investigation of corporations operating in the pharmaceutical industry. It showed basically how multinationals could use intra-firm pricing and accounting mechanisms to siphon out, or invisibly repatriate, profits from their overseas enterprises. This was accompanied by extensive work on the role of foreign investment and multinationals in developing economies, done in part in collaboration with one of his early mentors, Paul Streeten. Lall's fascination with India and the Indian economy led to his opening up a related, highly significant field of work - the phenomenon of Third World multinationals, and developing countries as the exporters of technology.

A second interwoven strand of work was on the development of technological capability in developing countries. Technology has generally mystified economists, and in turn, and true to their profession, economic theorists have tended to mystify technology. Technology is. Technological change happens. But what is "it", precisely? Lall stands in a fine line of thinkers who have challenged the black-box, reductionist view of technology in economic theorising. In its place, he attempted to develop over time the notion of the construction of technological capability, whether in an enterprise, in a firm, in an industry, or in an economy. He argued that, far from just "picking" industrial winners, the East Asian tiger economies had carefully and proactively "created" winners through the generation of technological capability and the acquisition of industrial competitiveness.

This feeds directly into a third group of ideas. How should the industrialist, or the policymaker, in a developing country set about generating technological capability and industrial competitiveness? Lall's empirical work carefully scrutinised the validity of the ubiquitous assertions that unrestricted flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) through multinationals would lead to effective technology transfer into the manufacturing sectors of developing economies. Lall tends seriously to question the automaticity of any such benefit transfer; he shows, however, the relevance of an active state policy vis-à-vis the domestic manufacturing and technology sectors.

The importance of the role of the state in generating a successful path of competitive industrialisation was one of the continuous threads running through his work. He did not balk at taking on positions that were unpopular among the neo-liberal unfettered-globalisation school. Very early in his career, he wrote a paper which toyed critically with the notion of dependency. Ever since then, the issue of the viability of autonomous, not autarkic, industrialisation in Third World economies was for him a latent leitmotif. From start to finish, Lall remained a passionate, but scientifically rigorous, advocate of Third World industrial development.

The Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professorship in Development and Business
On 30 July 2009 Oxford University announced the establishment of the Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professorship in Development and Business. The Visiting Professorship, generously endowed by the Sanjaya Lall Memorial Fund, is associated with the Said Business School and Green College at Oxford University. Oxford University will invite applications from distinguished scholars in development studies and business studies. The visiting professorship is for the period of one Oxford term; the holder is expected to deliver a public lecture and encouraged to contribute to other scholarly activities.

Published Books

 * Foreign Investment, Transnationals and Developing Countries (with P. P. Streeten), London: Macmillan, 1977. Reprinted 1978 and 1980 and in paperback, 1980, English Language Book Society edition, 1986.


 * The Growth of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Developing Countries, Vienna: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, 1979. French edition, 1980.


 * The Multinational Corporation: Nine Essays, London: Macmillan, and New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980. Paperback edition, 1983.


 * Developing Countries in the International Economy: Selected Papers, London: Macmillan, and New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1981. Paperback edition, 1985.


 * Developing Countries as Exporters of Technology: The Indian Experience, London: Macmillan, 1982, and New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1982.


 * The New Multinationals: The Spread of Third World Enterprises (in collaboration with E. Chen, J. Katz, B. Kosacoff and A. Villela) Chichester: J. Wiley, 1983. In French, Les Multionationales Originaires du Tiers Monde, Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 1984; in German, Multionationale Konzerne aus der Dritten Welt, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1984.


 * Multinationals, Technology and Exports, London: Macmillan, and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985.


 * Learning to Industrialize: The Acquisition of Technological Capability by India, London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.


 * Building Industrial Competitiveness in Developing Countries, and (in French) Promouvir la Competitivite Industriells dans les Pays en Developpement, Paris: OECD, 1990.


 * Current Issues in Development Economics (editor), with V. N. Balasubramanyam, London: Macmillan, 1991.


 * Alternative Development Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa (editor), with Frances Stewart and S. Wangwe, London: Macmillan, 1992, paperback edition, 1994.


 * Transnational Corporations and Economic Development (editor), London: Routledge, 1993 (Volume 3 of UN Centre on TNCs, Library on Transnational Corporations).


 * Third World Transnationals and Their Impact on Home Countries, United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, New York, 1993.


 * World Bank Support for Industrialization in Korea, India and Indonesia (with F. Najmabadi and S. Banerji), Washington, DC: World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department, 1993.


 * Technology and Enterprise Development: Ghana Under Structural Adjustment, with G. B. Navaretti, S. Teitel and G. Wignaraja, London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994, paperback edition, 1995.


 * Developing Industrial Technology: Lessons for Policy and Practice (with F. Najmabadi), World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department Study, 1995.


 * Learning from the Asian Tigers: Studies in Technology and Industrial Policy, London: Macmillan, 1996.


 * Attracting Foreign Investment: New Trends, Sources and Policies, London: Commonwealth Secretariat, Economic Paper 31, 1997.


 * Selective Policies for Export Promotion: Lessons from the Asian Tigers, Helsinki: UN University, World Institute for Development Economics Research, 1998.


 * The Technological Response to Import Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, (editor) London: Macmillan, 1999.


 * Competing with Labour: Skills and Competitiveness in Developing Countries, Geneva, International Labour Office, Issues in Development Discussion Paper 31, 1999.


 * Promoting Industrial Competitiveness in Developing Countries: Lessons from Asia, London: Commonwealth Secretariat, Economic Paper No. 39, 1999.


 * Export performance, technological upgrading and FDI strategies in the Asian newly industrializing economies: with special reference to Singapore (in English and Spanish), UN ECLAC, Santiago de Chile, Serie Desarrollo Productivo Number 88, 2000.


 * The Competitiveness Challenge: Transnational Corporations and Industrial Restructuring in Developing Countries (with M. Mortimore, H. Romijn and others), United Nations (UNCTAD): Geneva, 2000.


 * Competitiveness, Technology and Skills, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001.


 * The Economics of Technology Transfer (editor), in ‘The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics’ series, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001.


 * Reforming the UN System: UNIDO’s Need-Driven Model, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001, with Carlos Magariños, G. Assaf, J. Martinussen, R. Ricupero and F. Sercovich.


 * Failing to Compete: Technology Development and Technology Systems in Africa (with Carlo Pietrobelli), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002.


 * Foreign Direct Investment, Technology Development and Competitiveness in East Asia, (editor with Shujiro Urata), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003, for the World Bank Institute.