 Welcome to economics and beyond. I'm Rob Johnson president of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. I'm here today with Gaurav Dalmia The president of Dalmia group holdings which has holdings in business and financial assets And I'm also with Jayant Sinha A member of the Parliament and the chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance in the Indian Parliament Gentlemen, thanks for being with me today Thank you for having us Rob. Thank you Rob. We we uh Obviously you're making this podcast here in April of 2020 where everybody is consumed by the consequences and the the powerful response that is necessary to the pandemic that's called COVID-19 Each of you I'll start with Jayant, but I'm going to ask the same question of each of you What are we learning as you observe the responses around the world? How How does it what has been revealed and the presence of the pandemic? Suggests that we've somehow been off course in our social and system design And what do you see around the world that is inspiring? that has the How I say potential To help us stabilize and have a prosperous future Jayant, please Thank you very much Rob again for having us and You started off this discussion with a very profound and thought-provoking question Because what this corona pandemic showing is that we are singularly unprepared For black swan events let alone a mega black swan event, which is what the corona pandemic is The sad truth is that you know thinkers thought leaders Have been preparing us and warning us about a pandemic like this for a long time But when it came we were absolutely unprepared to deal with it And it really demonstrates that we just don't have the systems And we don't have the The multilateral institutions that will enable us to deal with that. So that is very clear that we are unprepared globally and at the country level in dealing with these mega and You know very serious black swan events. So that's I think the first learning The second learning is that when you know these kinds of catastrophes come upon us The global response the global cooperation Does not really engender much confidence And apart from a great deal of bickering and finger pointing We do not really see a coordinated response Which is really necessary for something of this sort And of course that extracts just Untold human human costs. So that's very clearly Happening as well. The third thing I will say is that at the country level And certainly in India we have demonstrated that as well That there has been a range of responses Some of which have been excellent and I would really put India's Handling of the whole matter in that category have been very excellent being very pre-emptive and getting ahead of the curve if you will And and and and that's really what we are seeing happening across the world is each country is dealing with it In its own ways given its own societies given its own mores And its own state capacity And there's a lot to be learned from all these different experiences But at the end of all of that if we were to just step back and say Where are we right now? I would say that we are still in a very very serious situation We've done really really well in India But nonetheless we've gone from You know situation where cases were doubling three of every three or four days To doubling every 10 days But even doubling every 10 days is a very very catastrophic situation We have at least six months before any cures will be available And in 180 days You know if this continues to double every 10 days, we will still be You know in a in a very catastrophic situation. So that's that's kind of what we are seeing right now And obviously, you know the the quicker science can get us a solution Are the better off we are going to be Gaurav your thoughts Rob, um, I would echo similar thoughts. I would say one I would say is because we've been immensely successful as a society a global society We've kind of Not thought through long tail risks And today we are facing one of those It's made us somewhat Complacent we are over confident of technology We're over confident that people will solve problems Which in the long term is true But I think in the near to medium term often we find that challenges overwhelm us and therefore I think we need to balance that confidence with a little bit of humility A second point I would make is the same forces that have made us strong the global interlinkages Which has made us prosperous and strong as a society It's the same globalization Which is somehow weakening us at this point in terms of the pandemic spreading from one place to the other and so on and so forth And therefore we need to understand that every strength at a certain point can become a weakness Thirdly, I would say that typically we tend to focus on top-down views of governance, but If you look at some of the success stories in India Particularly in the state of Kerala here and there I would say that the bottoms-up approach to governance has actually worked very well as well And we don't emphasize that often enough. So I would emphasize that Fourth, I would say You know Francis Frucaiama wrote this book called trust Which spoke about how societies that have innate trust Actually tend to do better than societies that don't and this is the time where all of us need to come together whether we are businesses government NGOs Retailers we have to come together to solve problems And not just leave it to health professionals to solve the problem And I think this is one of those tests we need to pass And lastly, I would say You know There's this feeling amongst people that someone else will solve the problem and that I believe that mindset is wrong There is no someone else to solve the problem with its climate change or the pandemic or anything else Is for us individually to see how we might act and we need to have a sense of agency about that How do each of you see The challenge being somewhat different or greater in emerging countries I my my own intuition is that There is What you might call relatively mature infrastructure in many of the advanced countries And now the fiscal burden of dealing with something that's this disruptive to the supply side and Requires a lot of action fiscal action by the government I would I would guess that it's Very stressful because that fiscal capacity could have been used for many other things That would facilitate development and in moving up Uh, the pro in terms of prosperity for your entire society Is it harder in an emerging country now? Is it? Demoralizing is it setting people back? How does it differ between there and say the g10 countries? So rob, I think the recovery in the developing world is going to be Much slower than it would be in the developed world And there are a number of factors that drive that Number one, of course the health infrastructure is much weaker. So the impact will be larger in terms of the pandemic Secondly, as you've pointed out far more limited fiscal resources And therefore, you know the ability to stimulate the economy or Deal with the health issues as well as deal with the development issues economic development issues Is limited and in addition to that Many many countries in the developing world Are commodity exporters and of course that is going to be hit very very hard in india We are very fortunate. We are a commodity importer So we'll benefit in terms of lower oil prices lower commodity prices But that's not true for the majority of countries in the developing world So because of their limited fiscal resources because the health infrastructure Is so much worse and because their exports are going to get hit their ability to recover from this shock Is is going to be much more much more constrained compared to the developed world Now there's one positive side to this which is that immune systems You know potentially the bcg vaccine these may confer To the developing world and of course it has a younger population as well these factors may mean that even though the Corona virus spreads much more exponentially among our populations That we are able to withstand it better with lower hospitalization and mortality rates So that may be the offset to some of this but nonetheless when you put it all together Rob It does appear to me that While the developed world will will suffer, you know Significant economic contraction its recovery will be relatively quick And they'll be able to power their way through it The developing world on the other hand is going to find it quite difficult to get through this Yeah, i've been reading quite a bit our commission on global economic transformation is developing A report and i've got a number of staff members working on on the continent of africa and the Mention of the word trust fukiyama's Book being a very nice illustration of what is at stake there What we see in africa throughout the continent Is that the average age of people in governance is well over 60 and the average age of the population is about 28 Which is quite a a divide and that the younger people have no faith or trust that the governance is going to be Directed to creating a prosperous future for them in africa The working age population over the next 40 years Will go from about 1.2 to 2.6 billion people but when the pandemic emerged The number of officials at multilateral banks intelligence agencies and others that i have conversation with They they are afraid of chaotic and widespread social unrest and that the resources and the trust are not at all adequate to meeting this challenge Let let me shift go off Let's zoom in on india How do you see india responding and and What more would you suggest the country do and please Share with me From the standpoint of a businessman It feels like we're all in this together all hands on deck What what do you feel is the How would I call it? the magic That the business community can contribute and invigorate everybody's sense of comfort and sense that this is a transient phenomena The way I would look at it is there are various ways in which We can solve our social challenges in india today So let's take a one axis which is Rawlsian versus utilitarian You can move from Rawlsian, which is how do people at the bottom of the pyramid Benefit to utilitarian. How does the average benefit? We can have another axis of authoritarian to libertarian And different countries may have respond in a different way I think india has responded in a On the spectrum as Rawlsian and somewhat authoritarian and Any solution that you find will get criticized Right, so india will have its own criticism. The u.s. Will have its own criticism. China might have its own criticism and so on and so forth But given that it is I think all of us need to come together to solve these problems If you look at the migrant labor issue That is one of the biggest problems that this transition Is facing currently, of course, there'll be economic issues that we will see as a result of this But here and now the migrant labor issues Are a big problem. We've contributed towards a feeding program I know other business people who have contributed towards health and feeding programs for migrant labor And I think we need to do more of that In terms of Businesses, I think we need to be prepared For helping the SME community So I think small businesses have a lot of problems and challenges of short-term finance and so on and so forth and It is not only the banks who can solve these problems because many of these may or may not be bankable They raise money from friends and family and informal sources And typically it is their ultimate customers Which are bigger businesses who need to support them with short-term cash flow infusion and so on and so forth And that will help I think in terms of The recovery We should also prepare for a recovery and I think lessons from china are very Indicative So if you look at just some china statistics Oil consumption fell down by almost 25% in china Is now down by only about 5% I believe So we need to prepare that we will have a bounce back whether it is three months from now Six months from now and we will like china But that will happen If you just look at some of the google maps data Peak traffic congestion in china in major cities it's running to normal Off peak is not yet returning to normal So we need as businesses to prepare for that kind of Demand coming back The chinese recovery is being Uh led by construction and infrastructure now that may be Something to do with the chinese stimulus package, but I believe similar stuff is happening in spain So again, we need to be prepared as businesses To respond to that kind of demand pickup as it happens Whether it is in construction or it's in other sectors On the whole I believe business Need not be a passive partner. It needs to be a more active partner as we go out get out of this current crisis giant to you do you see things In india that are really, uh, which you might call innovative in relation to what's happening in other places in the world That's a great question rob and I would say Yes in a limited way I think in terms of science and technology innovation with respect to You know new testing kids or new drugs vaccines I think there we have limited innovation. We could do much more We have come up with some new testing approaches and so on but as far as drugs are concerned as far as the vaccine is concerned We are definitely following what the us and the uk and others are doing So we really haven't innovated as much as we need to as far as science and technology is concerned On the other hand when it comes to managing the lockdown and coming up with administrative approaches and innovations To keeping 1.35 billion people Pretty much at home For now, uh, you know close to 35 40 days. I think we've done that remarkably well And there has always been this criticism if india that, you know, we have weak state capacity But I think what we're demonstrating through this very tight lockdown that we are following right now Which is perhaps the tightest lockdown in the world and still maintaining social peace and harmony And maintaining food supplies and other essential supplies to our people Is that we actually do have extraordinary state capacity, particularly when it's operated in mission mode So the way in which we have handled these challenges Of maintaining this tight lockdown and at the same time Getting this unprecedented social sort of cooperation And Gaurav alluded earlier to the whole concept of trust I think the trust that people have right now In the national leadership In what we are doing in terms of supporting them through this very difficult time I think that is, you know, very innovative and certainly I think unprecedented When you look across the world and that's reflected In the ratings that you know, the honorable prime minister, for example has right now One survey had him at 93.5 percent So I think in that sense there has been real innovation in terms of managing a very very tight lockdown And enabling trust among all sections of society Gaurav You've shared with me recent writings About the the relationship between what might call religion or different philosophies From all around the world And how this might be How would I say a A very important time To regenerate The vision of what a business is or what a business is for or what constitutes success As you see the private sector How would I put it compelled by the pandemic Not to just focus on shareholder maximization But with the power with the capacity with the talent with the systems to contribute to the whole world How does that intersect with your Philosophical deliberations You start by saying, you know, there's a book by Chris Anderson and David Sally It's called the numbers game and I'll take you to soccer because this is a book on soccer not really on religion And they compare basketball and soccer And they say that In Basketball you can play a strongman game, which means if you have one strong player or you bet on your strong players You can win a basketball game Soccer because it's a larger field a more complex game One person cannot dominate the court or the football or the soccer field And therefore you need to sort out your weak links So from a philosophical approach society is much more complex than a basketball court Just like soccer is much more cost Complex than a basketball court And therefore we need to invest all our energy not just in the strong links Which is what we sometimes attempted to do But towards the weak links So I would say that would be one of the Things that I would take away Secondly, I would say that Life in many ways is self-fulfilling If we believe we will succeed we will innovate and we will succeed So for example, I believe the bicycle was invented Because there was a volcano eruption in the 1800s in Indonesia Which led to ash formation and cooling of global temperatures And therefore the harvest of oats was very low As a result horses couldn't be fed And that led to the invention of the bicycle in Germany and obviously the french named it bicycle after that So we have to be able to bet on things like that that human ingenuity and We'll actually win if we believe we can win I'm as I listened to you talking about Soccer versus basketball. I'm reminded of a podcast in the series by Malcolm Gladwell a couple of years ago I think the series is called revisionist history And he was talking about How in the realm of education People sometimes do the wrong thing for creating An education system they tend to go where the donor gets validated But he brought up the game of soccer and he said If you go hire a superstar for 50 million dollars like Beckham It creates a celebrity energy But if you use that 50 million dollars to improve the quality of players number six through 11 You win championships And it was fascinating to hear you talking about soccer and the different the nature of the game rather than the one superstar The interactive teamwork and I'll have to put that on the On the website associated with this podcast because I thought I thought Malcolm Gladwell He did three series or excuse me three episodes That were about how to construct an education system and use that as an analogy Uh giant as you're looking around the world What what good examples and bad examples do you see in countries outside of India that you would you would like to underscore and illuminate? Well, we certainly need to understand exactly how in another, you know, very large densely populated country, which is china that they have been able to get back to normalcy and Obviously they locked down Hubei province very tightly, but you know, we've done the same thing And they've been able to get to a point where they don't have any domestic infections anymore Whatever infections are coming are coming from outside the country. So clearly they have been successful At at an unprecedented scale Certainly Australia has been successful as well. I'm told that new infections there have also pretty much Stopped certainly Korea has done remarkably well. Germany has done remarkably well So whether you look at democratic countries or non democratic countries, you look at Tropical countries or temperate countries that are good examples And good strategies that people have followed that we can we can certainly learn from and Gaurav you're what do you see you have lots of How I say international experience and so what are you seeing? Particularly in the private sector around the world. Where are people rising to the challenge that you would find inspiring? Well, I think similar stuff than what we are seeing in India really Rob. I think businesses are holding hands together to solve a lot of problems businesses are Not shine away from some of the challenges I'll tell you a story in courage that I saw In my own home a couple of days ago. So my wife has an apparel business. She employs about 2000 people and one of her themes in her business is women empowerment and That's one of her missions and Anne Taylor, which is an American company supports her in this because she employs Women workers and one of her factories is an all women factory And she's had to retrench a lot of people and together with Anne Taylor She's been working to see how they do minimal retrenchments And she wrote a very emotional letter which she wrote in English and thereafter I stated in Hindi She wrote a very emotional letter to her staff saying why they need to retrench some people And even though it was in the end a negative exercise It came out positive the alternative strategy would have been denial And that denial would have would have left to led to bigger problems later on And I think the fact that some of her customers my wife's company The staff in the labor they came together to be able to solve this problem. I thought it was very very positive the Question that many people Are asking all around the world Is how will The What you might call needed response to the pandemic Affect our momentum in addressing the concerns of climate change Many scientists believe that we're on a relatively short time horizon meaning 10 to 15 years To make profound transformation In our consumption of energy and particularly in the production of energy to move away from fossil fuels There's a feeling like as people use the phrase a green new deal that there's a need for a very large and global Which might call initiative and persistent initiative A very very profound transformation Of the structure of production So as the pandemic moves in It uses a great deal of fiscal capacity People are disrupted probably fatigued Sometimes disoriented in relation to their employment And people point to that and they say This may retard or set back the What was a building momentum and energy to deal with climate But on the other side People are saying what was unmasked by the pandemic May open Remove some of the blockages and open the system To more vital and coordinated and global response to climate change I'll start go off How do you see The challenge of climate change In light of the arrival of the pandemic Rob, you know every horror movie you see Starts with the scientists advice being ignored So the climate change horror movie is very similar In the near term though as a result of this pandemic I think we may move away from The concerns of climate change because our priorities would be slightly different But in the long term, I actually believe we'll come back towards climate change So let's look at what might happen in the near term From a consumer behavior standpoint from a behavior of certain governments and so on Oil is cheap and therefore the tradeoffs change Secondly because China is a major manufacturer of solar panels of lithium ion batteries and the trade And the trade clamp down that Is happening between us and china The supply chain constraints that may merge in china because of the pandemic May mean There may be delays and there may be challenges in environmental related Clean energy type of projects And the Eurasia group actually I think has done a good study on what may happen to climate change Issues as a result of this pandemic In the longer term though, I believe If you look at the tradeoffs of the major oil companies With low oil, a lot of the oil investments they will rethink And they may actually divert investments towards clean energy And therefore I think it will pick up quickly the whole issue of climate change and so on and so forth And jeneth, I sent you this cartoon a couple of days ago Which is I took from Economist magazine Which showed the world fighting with a covid-19 virus in a boxing ring And outside the boxing ring the big gorilla which is climate change is standing waiting for the next fight So I think we will learn lessons from a fight with covid-19 Which we may use effectively for a fight with climate change No, you're exactly right. Yeah, you're exactly right. We will learn lessons from the fight with The corona virus sadly I must say that those lessons don't inspire much confidence Because as I said right at the outset We have not been either able to understand the magnitude of these kinds of black swan events very well Grappled with it as a global society Nor once it is upon us have we been able to Work on it in a coordinated fashion And deal with it with the appropriate multilateral institutions Now that is the situation with The corona virus which has a very finite end and which is very tractable When it comes to medical science now We know as far as climate change is concerned that it is in some ways even more catastrophic and even more open-ended and because of the kind of system our climate Is that there are these open feedback loops that can result in You know various different aspects of that subsystems, whether it's the Arctic or the Antarctic ice Whether it's ocean warming whether it's precipitation whether it's drought many of these are subsystems that have these open catastrophic sort of exponential behaviors That will be almost impossible to manage and handle and You know as a society. We just simply don't deal with non-linearity very well Our institutions move far too slowly. There's too many vested interests that want to block it at every step of the way But once these systems start to spiral out of control It becomes very very difficult for us to deal with them And that gives me gives me great concern and I really do worry about it. And you're exactly right go to that Economist cartoon had climate change waiting for us But I'm not sure that that is around who I am looking forward to Let's Move to what how would I say is the centerpiece of inet's uh mission go of your member of our board and quite familiar with the agenda But there is a notion this referred to as the overton window It is that subset Of what you might call the ideas that imagination could envision That are acceptable that are part of the conventional wisdom And it has been the case throughout history that periodically Some disruption to the nature of commerce or the structure of the world or or related to disease have been uh Past pandemics and or technological change like we've seen the massive transformation of the structure of production As we look at these challenges I would I'm curious what each of you see As the likely change in the structure of ideas and the way I would ask the question is When a young person is in college 20 years from now How are they going to think differently that someone who's been in college these last four years About the design and the structure of the world that we should have Gaurav, why don't you why don't we'll start with you? You know in some ways, I think Rob We've become more democratized. We've learned about each other's problems a little bit more So for example every 15 seconds A child dies of malnutrition So this is from a 2013 study Conducted globally Called make Poverty history Now this used to be far away For most western observers It was not vivid And all this was going on when there was enough food for everyone As Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate has pointed out I think our day-to-day problems We will be able to see More much better Because of this crisis, I think Second thing I believe is We will believe more in governments Governments will come out. I think on average better The cynicism that people have about governments. I think we'll change South Korea as we know has just run a full election In the middle of this crisis So I think that kind of thing I'm very optimistic about Third, I think concepts that were on the fringe. So let's look at universal basic income This was a fringe concept although it started I think as a concept in the 16th century It only came to our attention in any serious manner In the last 10 years. I think this will go far more mainstream In the next 10 to 15 years I think work from home as a concept May become more common to a university graduate graduating 20 years from now Than someone graduating today So Germany as you may have seen Rob is passing a legislation Where employees might get a right to work from home Just today TCS, which is a $22 billion revenue company announced That they have 450,000 people and by 2025 they will go through a plan To see how a majority of them can work from home So I think things like that Will really change The way we conceive the last point I want to make and I'm a vegetarian And I think it was Steven Pinker who gave a talk in Davos several years ago And he said we might think of eating meat Two generations from now and each generation being defined as 15 years So let's say in 30 years the way we think of slavery today So I would encourage people to watch this film and Rob you should see it Jayanthi you should see it. It's on Netflix called the game changes It's on veganism and it talks about not just the health issues But the economic issues and the moral issues related to eating meat So I think these may be the profound changes that may happen the next 25 years Jayanth, how would you augment what Gaurav has expressed? Those are very insightful comments Rob And what I will add to that is that we all have a incredible responsibility to shift the overton window over to the point where You know climate change becomes a very high priority for governments everywhere And you know it'll become obviously a priority for governments if it's a priority for people And we really have to thank Greta Thunberg for example In Europe for having you know in some ways single-handedly shifting the overton window On climate change certainly in Europe where you know now it's become a very high priority That's not the case in clearly the United States. It's clearly not the case in India I wouldn't know much about how China is looking at it. Certainly we know Australia is grappling with this But it really is very incumbent upon us to build the environment to build the thinking and the commitment among people To make this a front and center high priority issue Because governments obviously react to what what people require And one of the things I do worry about Is that if you take air pollution in New Delhi as an example We are living here in Delhi in the most polluted city in the world Pollution levels are high throughout the year, but for three or four months of the year in the fall and in the winter It's almost unbearable. I mean you simply can't breathe the poisonous air. However And this is really what concerns me Rob. However, it's not an election issue And so how do we how do we ensure that people are able to lift themselves up from the very very sort of here and now very sort of Narrow issues that most of them grapple with and deal with on a day-to-day basis And really help them think longer term And more systemically about the world they are going to live in and their children are going to live in because particularly, you know, since I'm Somebody who is an elected member of parliament. I sit in our lower house I have 1.7 million voters in my constituency about two and a half million people I represent Uh, you know, when I talk to them Most of their interests most of the issues that really concern them are very very sort of you know Nearer term they're not longer term at all and they are very much concerned about How their lives are going to be tomorrow and the day after but very few of them really think deeply about You know what their lives they're going to be like five or ten years from now what their children's lives are going to be But again, as far as climate change is concerned, we've obviously got to act now for Being able to deal with the catastrophic consequences 10 years from now. So how do you build that public? understanding And how do you get people motivated to place pressure on the elected representatives to act on these issues? Is something i'm not sure that we have achieved certainly not in In in the same How do you say spirit related to the overton window? Ever since the treaty of west failure Social designers and social, you know analysts of social policy Have focused on something they call the nation-state In recent years with technological development technological and financial capital mobility Greater human mobility through transportation Which you might call the the Integrity or clarity of what is called a nation-state Has been drawn into question people refer to the advent of globalization And I sense as the pandemic traveled across borders That people were seeing A bit of a contradiction to the Economist worldview that fewer restrictions and more flexibility means things can be redeployed And everything can reach its comparative advantage and be better An epidemiologist might say well when things are good They can diffuse through that unrestrained network, but when things are bad they need to be confined That there needs to be compartmentalization to stop the propagation of the bad So in this world of what we might call porous nations embedded in the globalist environment How will the pandemic and climate Effect our perception Of the structure of globalization in relation to the nation-state does the nation-state have to be fortified Or do we need global governance, particularly on issues like climate? I'm curious how each of you sees The future of globalization Jayant, why don't we reverse the roles and start with you first on this one? Globalization is certainly going to Continue to be a very very important aspect of all nation-states and We are going to have to find ways of making it work better for everyone and there are many different sort of areas where There is very significant friction that is developing in the globalization paradigm that we have been following There will have to be adjustments. I mean one very obvious thing is that if you look at How multilateral institutions are set up whether it's the un or the imf In many cases countries like india deeply underrepresented and they are by no means you know a fair and Balanced representation of either people or economic Stature or any other consideration. So multilateral institutions are going to have to be reformed root and branch That's one very important aspect of globalization second multilateral institutions will also Have to play a much more vigilant role In dealing with some of these challenges associated with globalization as gaurav was pointing out the obvious example here Of course is WHO and its role relative to the pandemic So we have to not only reform the institutions. You have to make sure that they work far far better Then there are very serious issues around global equity rob Certainly when it comes to climate change for example And you look at it in terms of the stock of emissions that a developed world citizen has put up there And you know previous generations have put up there into the atmosphere and you look at what any indian citizen is going to do If you look at it, not just from a flow perspective, which is which is traditionally the way the Dialogue has happened, but look at it from a stock perspective It's obvious that there are massive massive inequities associated with with climate change Then there are really serious issues about capital and human flows migration Of course is is a major concern for europe right now Certainly for india in terms of our people diaspora, etc So each of these as I said is is a major of you know, sort of area of friction for globalization But unless we develop strong and capable multilateral institutions and we agree That we will support them. We really are not going to be able to make globalization work for us right now You know, it is it is something we can't we can't wish away But frankly, I don't think it's working very well for us right now Gaurav your thoughts So rob the way I am looking at globalization is to be classical Get it in terms of trade flows capital flows and flow of people So if you look at trade as percentage of GDP, that's already peaked and it's slowing down a little bit I do believe it's a bit of a pendulum And it will shift back into high gear I think the big problem may be In terms of short-term nationalistic interests. So for example in india right now There are these whatsapp messages going within all of us In the business community and and consumers in general saying please buy your product from tata click Which is an indian owned e-commerce site and don't buy it from amazon or flip card flip card by the way is owned by walmart So there is this kind of sentiment Saying we need to save india we need to do work for india We're in a pandemic and it's inevitable that these kinds of sentiments will surface and I think over time they will dissipate I think a longer-term problem has to do with inequality leading to pressures on people moving And migration and I think this may be a bigger problem for europe Than for some other countries Some other continents, but I think the big challenge to globalization will be just migration of people and how it will work To I worry about that. I don't really have an answer And part of globalization today is also interlinked with the power shift between the western world and china And I think that superimposes a whole new set of challenges that make curtail globalization from time to time So if you just look at what's happened in the last few weeks china has become more aggressive in the south china sea china has Become is getting a little bit more aggressive again in hong kong last couple of days and How that all will play out? remains to be seen and by the way Give it back to jen because jen actually wrote a very good op-ed a couple of days ago in the economic times in india And he called this word gated globalism. So I think this word gated globalization will become A terminology in the world of economics jen, your thoughts there And I'll try to get a copy to post on the website also of your new op-ed thank you, rob gaurav is right to have said that you know, we are Going to be using trust very much as a way to think about the future And when you apply the idea of trust to globalization you very naturally come to this concept of gated globalization because Just like you know, you have a gated community where there are people within the community that you trust We are going to create these gated sort of communities within which we will trade You know in a in a free way But outside our gated communities. We will have real distrust with our trading partners and The question of course is how will these gated communities get created? Obviously, there are a variety of free trade agreements that already exist people are Fashioning new free trade agreements, but increasingly we will see those kinds of bilateral arrangements as opposed to the classic Multilateral arrangements of the past again because as I was saying earlier That the multilateral institutions have really in some ways not Succeeded and you may be familiar with what the present trump administration is doing with the wto for example Where they have rendered that multilateral institution largely defunct And you know started to do a series of bilateral negotiations on the trade side So in effect, you know, the trump administration is creating kind of a gated globalization even as we speak and certainly Since the us sets the rules in many of these situations We in india will have to follow There has been some action recently for us as well on foreign direct investment Where again in the same idea of gated globalization We have said that our fdi policies are What they are for the rest of the world, but any country that shares a geographic border with india Will have to go through a special set of checks When it comes to foreign direct investment So in effect, we are already in the process as we speak of creating these gated communities and deciding whom is it that we trust in And how we want to do trade with them and another good example, of course is the pressure On the uk and other countries in europe around 5g That the trump administration is imposing So we see these we see these happening across Across the world and increasingly post the pandemic Where you never know who's coming on a plane and what impact that's going to have on you We may even see health and health certificates as a way of genuinely setting up these kinds of kids Gaurav, do you have final thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners? So I was saying I think in a crisis like this heroes reveal themselves I've been reading a book called hundred great lives. It's edited by a person called john canning and it follows covers the lives of Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck and so on and so forth And it's very clear when you read these biographies That these leaders emerged from some kind of crisis on other Charles Darwin's battle against the religious establishment Was just intense You know Abraham Lincoln's during the civil war and so on and so forth. So I do believe Crisis are an opportunity for leadership to emerge and the last point I want to make is I was hearing this song Actually a couple of days ago by Barbara Steisand and it's called don't lie to me. It's a message to trump by the way and Out of that song really struck me it says Everyone answers to someone So when we're in positions of power and influence we kind of forget And times like this realize we all answer to someone very nice Cheyenne final thoughts very difficult for me to add anything More more than what god of is already laid out, but he's exactly right the moment will find the woman and We will certainly have people stepping forward and and providing us their sterling leadership which the world really requires just now and You know, we do have a number of challenges Obviously we've discussed quite a few of them, but again the human spirit human innovation Is is the force that has propelled us through history? And that is undaunted undiminished And certainly even through this pandemic. We are seeing how how people have rallied behind Their leaders they've rallied to ensure that Fellow human beings are being supported. So the human spirit will certainly carry us through Thank you both I'm Actually, this is an audio broadcast, but I'm smiling at the moment Because I'm remembering the good fortune that I had several years ago To be caught on a bus in a snowstorm From Zurich headed toward Davos And sitting across from me Was a gentleman and we struck up a nice conversation and How you say made the best of five to six hours On a bus in a ride that usually is about 90 minutes long And that was you go off And little did I know as I was watching the snowstorm and Trying to use my phone and weak Wi-Fi territory to reschedule some meetings That I'd have the good fortune Of talking with you and working with you and meeting Jayant here on this telecast The Clarity and the intelligence you both bring to bear Is quite encouraging And I want to read a poem that someone shared with me yesterday That I think it was written about nine years ago, but I think it's quite germane to the conversation we had And to the current challenge The name of the poem is it is Is infect the world with your light It's by a man named ben okre who's from africa and it goes like this Will you be at the harvest among the gatherers of new fruits? Then you must begin today To remake your mental and spiritual world And join the warriors in celebrants of freedom Realizers of great dreams You can't remake the world Without remaking yourself Each new era begins within It is an inward event with unsuspected possibilities for inner liberation We could use it to turn on our inward lights We could use it To use even the dark and negative things positively We could use the new era to clean our eyes to see the world differently and to see ourselves more clearly Only free people can make a free world Infect the world with your light Help fulfill the golden prophecies Press forward the human genius Our future is greater than our past Once again, thank you both for joining me today I hope that we can convene again for another chapter on this podcast in a few months time And reflect on where things are at that point, but this was quite illuminating today and Thank you for sharing your light. Thank you, Rob And that was a beautiful play poem and I'll just conclude by saying that It reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi G's immortal words be the change you want to see Yeah On that note, Rob, thank you once again Thank you We'll uh to be continued Bye-bye and check out more from the institute for new economic thinking at inet economics.org