Economics and the Socratic Life at Presidency College
From L to R: Dipak Banerjee, Mihir Rakshit and Nabendu Sen. These are notes written for a panel talk I gave on my undergraduate education at Presidency College in Calcutta, 1974-1977. I joined Presidency College in 1974 after finishing my BA in Economics from St. Xavier's College. I had taken the IIT entrance exam but my heart wasn't in it. Besides, I didn't want to go to Madras, Delhi or even Kharagpur. Then I read Samuelson's Economics text and I was hooked. Here was a language in which social concerns could perhaps be adequately expressed, and which aspired to some degree of precision. I took the economics entrance exam at Presidency and to my great joy I was accepted. It was a small class and obviously I remember every one of my classmates with not a small amount of affection and pride. The best three students -- perhaps the best four -- were all women. (I don't believe any of them went on to do a Ph.D. in economics: read into that what you will.) The current p