A Brief About Dr. K. Puttaswamaiah Specialised areas in Economics

 While the following pages of ‘Curriculum Vitae’ of Dr. K.Puttaswamaiah contain his personal details, academic attainments, Projects for economic development formulated, evaluation studies carried out with the aid of surveys and on-the-spot studies, besides a number of in-depth studies and socio-economic surveys and the resultant published reports, it may be said that he is specialized in the following areas of economic science.
His reports on Project Appraisals, studies and books born out of experience on Project Appraisal, Cost-Benefit Analysis and other Appraisals and Evaluation of all the three types – Ex-ante, Concurrent and Ex-post are a few examples supporting his specialisation in Project Formulation, Evaluation and Cost-Benefit Analysis. He has been a known evaluator in India through his books and studies which are described later.He may be called a “Planner Economist”, as he has worked in that area for over four decades.

Secondly, he is specialized in Theoretical Economics – Macro & Micro and other areas of fundamentals of Economics and the application of those theories to practical situations based on Empirical evidences. He is well-known in Regional Economics – His magna-opus : “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF KARNATAKA – A Treatise in Continuity and Change” published in a set of two volumes has been wellreceived and some reviewer’s have described this work as “one which is on the lines of
Gunnar Myrdall’s ‘Asian Drama’ ”.

Thirdly, he has done lot of research work on the contributions of Nobel Laureates in Economics. His book in three volumes on the “Nobel Economists - Lives and Contributions” with ‘Foreword’ by Prof. Jan. Tinbergen, the First Nobel Laureate in Economics covers Lives and Contributions of thirty seven Laureates who have received the Nobel Prizes from 1969 to 1994 is a hard work on which he has spent years to complete the task. TINBERGEN has vividly described this work in his ‘Foreword’. There are also a few independent books on Laureates like Tinbergen, John Hicks, Samuelson, Franco Modigliani and Wassily Leontief.

Fourthly, he has done a lot of work relating to Theory and practice of Economic Surveys. He has authored a number of programmes for poverty alleviation and about thirty blocks have been covered by Socio-Economic house-hold surveys in Karnataka with a view to identify ‘the poorest among the poor’ and give them packages of programmes to bring them above the poverty line. His book “MICRO-PLAN FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT” published provides methods of poverty estimation. This study has been conducted at the request of the Government of India. Further, based on the block level house-hold other surveys, a book entitled “Socio-Economic Analytics of Poverty in India” is almost getting ready.

Lastly, he has developed parameters for demarketing backward and forward areas in a book called “INDICATORS OF DEVELOPMENT”. In an another study : “Customer Service in Canara Bank – Indicators for Measurement”, he has developed a set of Indicators to review and rate the branches of the bank in their service to
customers. Probably, none of the studies or official reports have so far identified indicators/parameters to measure customer service satisfaction. This study is an attempt
to fill that gap.More details follow in the coming pages.