In this article, I will try to shed light on why we lack researchers and scholars working on macroeconomic issues in Bangladesh. I have been following debates on Bangladesh's macroeconomic reports for a long time, like many other people. We even struggle to find specialized people for the role of central bank governors. This is also not new.
This process reminded me of an old issue we had back in my undergraduate years in University of Dhaka. I was an undergraduate student from 2005-2009 (Economics). I took every macroeconomics class my department offered and none of them was taught by macroeconomists other than my principles of economics class.
Truly, our department did not have macroeconomists. As a result, we rarely had any good training in macroeconomics. The classes were taught by people trained in applied microeconomics.
This is true for all Bangladeshi universities. We do not even have people who can teach an advanced macroeconomics class -- let’s forget about doing research on macroeconomic stability or other advanced topics.
Sometimes, we have a development economist as the central bank governor, or sometimes we appoint a bureaucrat in that role. Rarely somebody with a solid understanding of macroeconomics has come to the scenario.
The reason is simple, and I think lots of us know the reason and do not talk about it.
Think about our economics education system. For higher education in economics, we totally depend on foreign countries like the US or Europe. Our students go there to finish their PhDs.
Macroeconomics in the last 30 years has become very mathematical in these countries. Our graduate students, even if they start PhDs in great schools, rarely have the courage to go to that much of a math-dependent path. I believe this is one big reason why we rarely have any good macroeconomists in Bangladesh.
Now, at this moment, most dissertations written by Bangladeshi economics students I see are on microeconomic topics; most papers written by Bangladeshi economists are in randomized control trial areas. This is the area where our students get research funding, and we all know that research is expensive.
This is why we can see many health economists who can help to decide on public health issues. But, we rarely have a scholar who can write and talk about economic growth in Bangladesh.
Macroeconomic stability is an academic research policy topic that will include monetary policy, role of central banks, long-term economic growth, and fluctuation. What should be our interest rate? How much inflation will we allow to achieve our targeted GDP growth rate? These are not the areas where our students/young scholars are working.
Now, I want to talk a little bit about my own experience in North America as a graduate student. This is less about my international student experience, more about my observation as an international scholar, after seeing North American economics education closely for some time now.
When I started to apply for a PhD, I strongly restricted myself from any "macro" departments. I applied to some applied economics and some applied-oriented economics departments.
But, actually, my performance in macroeconomics was much better than my microeconomics performance in masters in Economics (from Simon Fraser University, Canada), and two of my reference letter writers in Simon Fraser University were also macroeconomists. Still, I did not go into the path of macroeconomics.
Why did I do that? Because almost everybody I know was failing the macroeconomics core exam. This is similar to saying they were dropping out of the PhD program. It was just so math oriented -- even reading current macroeconomics graduate-level textbooks without a solid mathematics background is impossible. I could not take that risk. I played a safe game.
It is not only me. Many students either totally avoid macroeconomics or avoid it after the core exam in fear of math. I know people who started a PhD because they wanted to be macroeconomists, but then they opted out after the first year.
Western macroeconomic education system is obsessed with mathematics -- it mainly happened in the last 20 to 30 years. I will not comment on the process -- these macroeconomists definitely know more than me and have a reason to incorporate so much math.
On the other hand, Bangladeshi undergraduate students in economics do not get a chance to take mathematics courses in the universities. Mathematics skill is creating a strong barrier for our students and young scholars.
I am concerned that smaller countries who depend on Western education systems to create intellectuals will suffer in the long run. Countries like Bangladesh will suffer more because for the most part, we do not even give a chance to double major in mathematics and economics.
Now that you know my concern about the education system and our lack of mathematics background to get necessary training to be a macroeconomist, here are a couple of paths I can think of to get through this problem.
First, we need special investment in macroeconomic research centres. We can invite scholars from other countries with similar growth paths to help us train the next generation of economists in macroeconomics.
Also, we need to give our students a chance to double major in mathematics and economics like all other countries. If we have our students who can deal with advanced mathematics, learning current macroeconomics will not be a big problem for them anymore.
Aparna Howlader, PhD is Assistant Professor, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, USA.
