The Case for Retreat as DRR

 

THE CASE FOR RETREAT AS A FORM OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

Ajit Chaudhuri – 9^th October 2019

“Retreat, Hell! We just got here!”[1]

The term ‘retreat’ originates from military strategy and has negative connotations (as can be discerned from the quote above) – it is usually a prelude to defeat and a likely subsequent massacre. However, when undertaken in a strategic or planned manner, retreat can be used to serve positive objectives as well. Records suggest that retreat was first used as an offensive strategy by the Mongol armies of the 13^th century (who were masters at feigning disarray and inviting cavalry charges that drew enemies into locations of their, i.e. the Mongols’, choice), and most famously by the Tsarist army during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812 (letting the French reach the outskirts of Moscow before pouncing – of the 500,000 strong invading force that crossed into Russia in June, only 27,000 crossed back in December).

Thinking on disaster risk reduction (DRR), too, has a negative lens on retreat (or the resettlement of communities to pre-identified locations); it is seen as a last resort, as a one-time emergency action, and/or as a failure to adapt – often undertaken in an abrupt, ad hoc and inequitable manner that involves some level of human rights abuse and is unfair to renters and low-income house owners. DRR prefers to focus upon building resilience of vulnerable communities where they already are, so that they have the ability to withstand the hazards that come their way.

And yet, retreat has always been an adaptation option – there is little point in building resilience of communities in areas that are prone to avalanches or landslides, for example, because no amount of resilience is sufficient protection in the face of certain hazards. And people in hazard prone areas usually look to move themselves and their assets out of harm’s way, more so nowadays with global warming, rising sea levels, and climate related extremes. Those with fewer resources have fewer options to address such risks; they are unable to return, or to rebuild more resiliently; some may feel forced into retreating; conversely, some may be unable to afford to move, and feel therefore trapped in a hazardous location. People staying in contexts of informal settings or insecure land tenures can be particularly affected.

Due to some of these reasons, retreat is often undertaken after an unfortunate event, and usually in some distress. The author happened to pass Malpa in 2014 (a Himalayan village along the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra that lost 221 people and its entire housing stock in a landslide in 1998), an eerie ghost village whose surviving residents had resettled in safer locations. While hindsight is always 20/20, the case for retreat was blindingly obvious given the steep, almost vertical, slopes of rock above the location, the proximity of the rock mass to major (and unstable) tectonic plates, and the heavy rainfall that ensured water seepage into the porous rock.

 

Retreat as a form of adaptation has attracted little research, and there is therefore limited guidance for administrators and DRR practitioners on using it for more than the physical removal of people and infrastructure. There is also limited focus on the social, cultural, psychological and long-term economic consequences for those retreating, those remaining, and those receiving the retreating communities.

It is therefore refreshing to find a recent academic paper[2] that reconceptualizes retreat as a positive DRR option enabling achievement of societal goals and letting communities choose actions most likely to help them thrive. It recognizes that retreat is hard to do (and even harder to do well) due to issues such as place attachment, a preference for status quo, imperfect risk perceptions, inter alia, and suggests that a strategic, managed retreat could be an efficient and equitable adaptation option.

On the strategic front, the paper suggests that a retreat should not be a goal but a means of contributing to a societal goal (such as economic development, environmental conservation, etc.), and should be larger than a group of individual households relocating for their own benefit in that it is coordinated across jurisdictions, involves multiple stakeholders, addresses multiple hazards and risks at both origin and destination sites, and integrates into planning for economic, social and environmental goals. It should also be forward looking and responsive to economic opportunities, market forces and demographic changes. Policy makers need to identify why a retreat should occur and influence the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of it.

Management of a retreat addresses how it is executed. To enable it to be equitable and efficient, there is a need to a) understand and address barriers – especially those in the form of institutional silos within government agencies and financial constraints, b) develop tools to identify residents who want to retreat and require assistance, and c) have communication strategies that engage reluctant residents.

There are several issues that complicate retreat and incentivize living in risky locales – fishing communities on India’s eastern coast, for example, are constantly battered by cyclones, but any attempt to move them to safer locales inland has to counter the suspicion that the administration is acting at the behest of the tourism and prawn cultivation lobbies that are always looking to occupy sea front areas. There is therefore a need to develop and disseminate high quality hazard maps that enable market prices to capture risk and help communities make informed choices.

There is much to be done before retreat is repositioned as a positive DRR option, despite the limitations of ‘build back better’ and other strategies that look to win against nature[3]. Evaluation of retreat outcomes, and recommendations for suitable and context specific policies and practices, are scarce. Key research gaps need to be addressed, and deployments in practice require testing and refinement. But first steps have been taken, and there is growing recognition that sometimes retreating from nature instead of fighting it can open new opportunities for communities.

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[1] Exclaimed by a US Marine during World War I when advised to withdraw from his position.

[2] Siders AR, Hino M and Mach KJ; ‘The Case of Strategic and Managed Climate Retreat’; Science Vol. 365 Issue 6455 pp 761-763; 23 August 2019

[3] Pierre-Louis, K; “How to Rebound After a Disaster: Move, Don’t Rebuild, Research Suggests”; NYT issue of 22 August 2019; accessed on 23 August 2019.

On Sabbaticals!

 

ON SABBATICALS

A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – November 2021

 

I recently concluded a 3-month break from work, my third of this century!

The first was in October to December 2001, when I absconded to the UK (and, for short stints, to Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Norway) on a British government scholarship to study leadership at the LSE. It was a great time to travel – nobody else was doing so in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and most airlines had a ‘get bums on seats at any cost’ policy that enabled great deals for the remotely intrepid. I took my family on a cruise (Newcastle to Amsterdam and back on ‘The Prince of Scandinavia’), I walked through the glens outside Edinburgh, I even took a journey across the Arctic Circle to Troms, all on my scholarship money. In fact, I remember only one weekend spent in London, the highlight of which was a visit to Loftus Road to watch a third division game between Queens Park Rangers and Oldham – football tickets were way more expensive than travel in those days, with GBP 30 getting you from London to Lisbon and back on British Airways but not a seat at an EPL game in London, not even those in the outer stratospheres of stadiums from where the players looked like ants.

The second was in November and December 2006 and January 2007, when I moved to Gujarat for a Visiting Fellow post at IRMA. The highlight of this was the kindling of a love affair with knowledge – it led onwards to several academic papers in different fields (power, participation, autonomy, aid effectiveness, democratic decentralization, et al) and an attempt at full-time doctoral education (I flunked out after three wonderful years alternating between the library and the football ground).

The third, August to October 2021, had no such structure or noble intent – I simply needed a break (pretending to work without having anything to really do takes its toll), I wanted to write a book (whose storyline has been churning inside my head for years), and I wanted to take my annual trek, an activity that, for me, makes life in a city livable (and I hadn’t done one since 2019, so this too was bursting inside me).

I also wanted time to think through my impending retirement.

So, a quick report!

I did two treks! The first was to Patalwan Lake in the Gurez Valley in Kashmir, 5 days from roadhead to roadhead, reaching an altitude of 4,000 meters! This was a beautiful, easy-paced trek through empty alpine meadows (and, I should mention, some less pleasant time spent clambering over rocks), culminating at a stunning and large high-altitude lake. Gurez has been described as the most beautiful part of Kashmir, but also not a good place to visit because of its proximity to the LOC and its convenience as a place for unwelcome foreign guests to cross over into India. My wife and elder child were among the 25-person group that did the trek, and we also enjoyed the excellent food (three hot meals a day, and wazwaan-style cooking when our camp cook was in the mood), the interactions with an army patrol that was in our vicinity through the trek, and the friendships we developed with our trek-mates and our trek leaders (both really cool recently-retired military personnel).

We returned to Srinagar and then decided on the spur of the moment to take an additional week to explore Ladakh (the wife and child had never been). For me, the highlight of this week was the Srinagar-Leh highway (I had travelled on this road many times in the late 1990s – some things had changed, and some had not) and the time spent in the Nubra Valley (my first time in the areas north of the Indus and along the beautiful Shyok and Nubra rivers). The lows were seeing the damage that a successful film can do (in this case, ‘3 Idiots’ to Pangong Tso lake) and the resemblance between Khardung La Pass and Lajpat Nagar market.

The second trek was to the Everest Base Camp in Nepal – it was long (12 days from Kathmandu to Kathmandu), high (reaching 5,600 meters at Mt. Kalapathar for those such as me who chose to make an extra effort for a wonderful view of Mt. Everest), and with long ups and downs, scary bridges, and some stretches of rocky terrain. But, beautiful scenery, few people (and, therefore, Indians welcome – thank you, pandemic), and mostly decent places to stay in with good food, electricity, and a selection of books to borrow. And, last but not least, this trek has serious show-off value upon return, especially in difficult forums such as one’s weekend football team. In case you are wondering, if an obese 58-year-old can do it, so can you (evidence is appended in the form of a photograph taken on 4^th October 2021)!

The second photograph was taken on top of the Taklang La pass on the Leh-Manali road (altitude 5,327 meters) in August 1995, and is included as evidence that wisdom does not, as is commonly believed, increase with age. Same dumbass, 26 years, some inches and many kilograms apart! Pathetic!!

I also managed to complete a first draft of my next novel, “A Walk Through the Wild Side”, which explores issues of ethnicity, identity and insurgency in the North East of India around the late 1990s – and expect sales to creep into double figures this time. Watch this space!!

What I did not do was think through retirement; what will I do, where will I go, should I slow down or continue to work somewhere, etc., at a time when my wife is working (the ‘kept man’ option is particularly attractive), my children are out of the house (though not yet off the payroll), and I like to think that I have almost enough money (nobody has quite enough). The default option, of disappearing into my wife’s cottage outside Dehradun and waking up every morning with nothing to do, no one to meet, and nowhere to go, is an attractive one (but is it too early for that?). Should I write for a living (as opposed to writing because I have something to say), and how would a true Bong manage the business end that is necessary for a modicum of success? Does somebody who is not ‘communications friendly’ (i.e., doesn’t speak much, is not on social media, likes being in the background, and is averse to networking) have something to offer in today’s, and tomorrow’s, post-truth world?

Matters have been somewhat expedited by my return to work, my welcome being akin to that of a refugee on the Polish-Belarussian border (not a great surprise – the corporate sector has a different attitude to 3-months-out compared with the media and development sectors that I had been part of earlier), and I have committed to GTFO by early 2022. Don’t feel too bad for me – I had done everything that I had joined up to do more than two years ago, and will not miss a job that I can do in my sleep, an ‘all-fart-no-shit’ department, and a retromingent hierarchy.

So, suggestions on retirement options are welcome!

Returning to sabbaticals – my experience with them has been excellent, and I strongly recommend these as a means of taking oneself away, recharging one’s batteries, and rethinking the fundamentals of one’s existence. They work well if there is a structure or else a set of pre-set goals for the time away, and a schedule for meeting these that keeps one genuinely busy. They don’t if they are mistaken for holidays (or, alternatively, if work keeps encroaching upon the time away), if they enable sleep in the daytime (or other activities that are not normally done during office hours), or if one ends up hanging around the house and getting in the way of its daily schedule. Getting one’s family on board is a good idea. And, like with children, spacing them out is advisable. Finally, a sabbatical should serve as a means to an end, one whose value in bringing about change in the quality and direction of one’s life is discernible only in hindsight, and not as an end in itself.

During my recent sabbatical, and as an antidote to that feeling of sloth that develops whenever things can be postponed to another day, I had the appended words greeting me at the dawn of every new day. And that’s another thing that hasn’t changed with time (along with my great wisdom, as described in the photographs above, and my love for football), they reminded me back in my college days to focus on the road ahead, and they continue to do so today.

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have promises to keep; and miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep.’ Robert Frost

 

It's Coming Home

 It’s Coming Home!

Ajit Chaudhuri – Reflections from Euro 2020 – July 2021

 

I always thought there are some things that, by definition, one can’t have too much of – things like sex, money and football. I’m not so sure now, in the aftermath of three weeks of the Copa Americana and the Euros being played simultaneously, climaxing into ‘the most important weekend of football’, Argentina v Brazil (can Messi win a trophy for country?) and England v Italy (is it coming home or going to Rome?). The harsh light of the following Monday morning brought questions – were the sleepless nights in front of the TV (followed by the sleepy days pretending to work) worth it? What did I learn? Am I a role model to my family, colleagues and friends, especially the young and impressionable among them, or a horrible warning? And, last but not least, am I willing to do this again in 2022?

What follows is a list of my observations from the Euros in no particular order.

 

1.    A near-death experience works out well

Let me begin with something that happened early in the tournament, Danish playmaker Eriksen’s on-field heart attack. Much touchy-feely stuff was subsequently said along the lines of some things being more important than football, the sensitivity of his teammates in providing a protective shield around him while he was being treated and the team captain in comforting his spouse, and the sense of shock among players, spectators and audiences as this played out on live TV.

My own take is – one, that nobody gave a crap three days later, and that the old adage ‘football is not a matter of life and death, it’s much more important than that’ continues to be valid. Two, this worked out well for Denmark – an ordinary team went on to its second-best ever performance in a major tournament (it has to be said that the luck of the draw played some part, including the Czechs beating the strong but testicle-less Dutch, their expected quarter-final opponent, the round before), reaching the semi-finals and going down courtesy a contentious extra-time penalty. Eriksen’s direct replacement, a kid called Darmsgaard, ended up as the find of the tournament, and other unknowns (such as Dolberg and Maehle) stood up to be counted. And three, nothing would get a player in a John Terry-led team off his deathbed faster than a whisper that the captain was comforting his spouse.

2.    Tactical trends on display

The most visible was the return of the pure goalscoring centre-forward (or the No. 9), or at least the need for one. It has become fashionable to play without one (Spain’s last tournament win, the Euro 2012, began the trend towards a ‘false 9’), and several top clubs such as the current English champions use this tactic. In this edition of the Euros, many top teams suffered from not having one (Spain most of all, but also Germany, Croatia, Netherlands and Portugal), and the likes of Schik, Lukaku and Benzema (back in Le Blue after 5 years) showed them what they were missing.

The second was on the use of substitutes – 5 are allowed in a game (up from 3), a consequence of the pandemic. Coaches have yet to adjust, most obviously in the final when England introducing two young and lightning quick players in the 119^th minute merely for the purpose of taking penalties (both missed) instead of giving them time to run at an aged (and tiring) Italian defence.

The third was the double defensive shield, or having two midfielders primarily tasked with protecting the defence in a tactic that Germany used effectively while winning the 2014 World Cup (WC – remember Khedira/Schweinsteiger!). Rice/ Phillips and Jorginho/Locatelli were outstanding for England and Italy respectively, as were Xhaka/Freuler for Switzerland in its win over France, and Schlager/Laimer for Austria when they gave the subsequent champions one hell of a scare.

The fourth, of wing backs bombing forward in a manner reminiscent of Roberto Carlos and Cafu and thereby bringing sudden and dangerous width into offensive transformation play, was made possible by the third. Walker/Shaw for England, Dumfries/Van Aanholt for the Netherlands, and Spinazzola/Berardi for Italy were particularly outstanding in this aspect of play.

3.    Diving, cheating, badgering, harassing

It is worrying when there is a significant disconnect between football as played at its lowest levels (such as my weekend kickaround with fellow middle-aged fatsos) and at its highest. One has been caused by the technological innovations of the past 5 years such as VAR – but given the stakes and the way refereeing mistakes often benefit bigger clubs, football fans are OK with the emphasis on correct decisions. Another is the on-field behaviour of the players – some teams play as if there is a sniper in the audience, diving to the ground like dying ducks in their efforts to fool the referee, and then gathering around to badger and harass him. This is cheating!!

We who play football do not play it like this – we love that it is a contact sport, and we use the game also as a way to build strength and character and not to teach how to be an asshole and a fraud. Italy, Spain and Portugal were especially unwatchable for this aspect of their game (the sight of Ronaldo being touched on the side and going down clutching his head was particularly off-putting), and other teams also used this shit to their benefit (Sterling’s dive for England against Denmark, for example). FIFA, please crack down! While we understand the need to protect flair players, and to ensure that what used to happen to Maradona day-in and day-out does not happen today, this nonsense has got completely out of hand.

4.    Players who made an impression

It is difficult to follow football and not know Donnarumma, but this was the first time many actually saw him play – his club AC Milan has not played in Europe for years, and Italy did not qualify for the 2018 WC. And he was even better than his reputation – big, technically correct, and confident both in the air and at stopping shots. What a goalie! For once, I concur with the pundit’s choice of ‘player of the tournament’.

There were two lost-wonderkids who re-enforced their potential at the Euros – Schick and Renato Sanchez (a rare Portuguese who tries to stay on his feet).

The geriatrics did not shame their generation on the performance front – Pandev, the Italian central defence with Bonucci even scoring in the final (and Italy winning its quarterfinal against Belgium in the battle between grandparental defenders), and Ronaldo winning the tournament’s ‘golden boot’. The same could not be said about their behaviour, with Pepe’s being particularly egregious. Mohamed Ali famously said that ‘if you are the same person at 50 that you were at 20, you have wasted 30 years of your life’. Sadly, some players have not changed with age.

The debutants had players who will surely move to bigger clubs – Arajuuri and O’Shaughnessy for Finland and Bardhi and Elmas for North Macedonia.

And one now realizes why some small clubs are able to punch above their weight in their respective leagues – because they have fantastic players, who also shined for their countries at these Euros. Atalanta’s Freuler, Goosens, Maehle and Pessina; West Ham’s Coufal, Rice and Soucek, Leeds’ Aliosky, Klich and Phillips, et al.

5.    The biggest disappointments

Easily Turkey and Russia, but also good to see these wannabe dictatorships’ hot air balloons pricked in full public glare – most especially in Turkey’s 0-2 loss to Wales in Baku with its strongman primping in the audience. Pre-tournament favourites France and Portugal as well for going out so early – France catching Switzerland on a day in which every Swiss player had the game of his life (Arsenal fans were pinching themselves to recognize their on-again-off-again captain, and Shaquiri reminded fans why he was once a highly regarded offensive pivot), and Portugal mistaking theatre for football in a game against Belgium’s golden generation.

6.    What’s with the hairstyles?

Ten years ago, football was aptly described as ‘22 fellows in perms running after a ball, and Spain always wins!’ Today, younger players seem to prefer tattoo parlours over salons – the only one who’s mane would have required skills of a level beyond those of a barber under a tree was M’babu (no, he’s not the outcome of a liaison between Kylian M’bappe and an Indian bureaucrat).  And most older ones who sported long tresses in their younger days have transitioned from looking like they would give pleasure in a men’s jail to looking like they would take it (such as Kjaer and the absent Ramos). It was left to Hamsik, still sporting the mohawk that he wore while captaining Slovakia at the 2010 WC, to carry the card for hairdressers.

The players looked alright despite this. A consequence of the economic downturn was less advertisements in the run up to kick-offs, and audiences thereby got to see the teams lining up (we were also treated to Wembley’s booing of the German, Danish and Italian anthems in turn, followed by a sharp downswing in the betting odds for England hosting the 2030 WC). The Danes looked the nicest, the Turks (with the exception of Mr. Perfect Jawline Soyuncu) the most thuggish, but nothing quite matched the 1990 WC where the Italian line-up outdid any male catwalk (Giannini, Maldini, Zenga) and the Dutch (Koeman, Rijkaard, Wouters) looked like Uderzo’s inspiration for Asterix’s pirates preparing to board a ship.

 

Goodbye 19-20, Hello 20-21

 

GOODBYE 19-20, HELLO 20-21!!

‘And the seasons, they go round and round; and the painted ponies go up and down; captive in a carousel of time; can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came; and go round and round and round in a circle game!’ – Joni Mitchell, “Circle Game”

 

When does the year begin? Is it 1^st January, as per the calendar? Or 1^st April, as office budgets, performance appraisals and, last but not least, income tax wallahs decree? Or is it a function of one’s religion or community (as those of us who scour for those that fall on Fridays or Mondays for inclusion into the official holiday list can attest to – I remember celebrating Tibetan New Year once under this pretext)?

As a football lover, I have a clear answer! It is mid-August, when the English Premier League (EPL) begins – when the sun finally rises after a long and lonely off-season of weekend socializing, when we can bunker down in front of our TVs on Sat/Sun evenings, and when our internet chat-rooms and WhatsApp groups burst into life.

It’s later this year for pandemic-related reasons, and we also have to get used to empty stadiums, no pre-game handshakes, subdued goal celebrations and other assorted crap, but hey – it’s back!! What do we have to look forward to this season?

Here’s my list!!

1.    Watching a Bielsa team play, week in and week out!

While many claim to eat, sleep, breathe and dream football, there is one person to whom this actually applies – the coach Marcelo Bielsa. He was not a significant player, has never managed a big club, and has never won anything significant, but his coaching philosophy is as influential as that of the legendary Johann Cruyff. “El Loco” or “The Madman”, as he is called (for good reason), prefers to work with small teams and unknown players, mold them to his ways, and then make something of the team and the players before moving on. He began working with Leeds United (a large but traumatized club mired in mid-table mediocrity in England’s second division) in 2018 and led them to promotion into the EPL this year. Three games in, and watching Leeds is like watching basketball; end to end action, calamitous defending, goals galore; its match against Man City was the first time I have seen a Pep Guardiola team concede possession to an opponent. I can’t wait for more!

2.    Seeing the ‘superstar freshers’ settle!

Three big guns have arrived; James Rodrigues, Thiago Alcantara, Gareth Bale.

James, the Golden Boot winner of the 2014 World Cup who Everton bought from Real Madrid, is already setting the league alight with his silky left foot. His new teammates are responding by lifting their own standards, making for an Everton team that looks like it will do serious damage to the ‘Big Six’ this year. As an aside, Everton has other assets as well – a coach with serious pedigree, two other new signings (Allan and Doucoure) who provide the steel in midfield to complement James’ creativity, a young centre forward who is looking to make his name, et al.

Thiago is the son of WC winner Mazinho (of the baby goal celebration with Bebeto and Romario in USA 1994) and a key member of an all-conquering Bayern Munich team (his purchase by Bayern was a condition for Guardiola to move there himself). He comes to Liverpool, itself an all-conquering team, and the little that he has played thus far showcases what Liverpool have missed – a midfield creative genius. His no-look assist for Sadio Mane’s goal against Everton (ruled out by VAR for a hairline offside) is a harbinger of things to come. Can Liverpool get even better this time?

It is difficult to term Bale a fresher – he spent 6 years with Spurs before moving to Real Madrid and winning everything there is to win at club level (including 4 Champions Trophy winner medals and 2 La Liga titles) – and his presence in the EPL is more a ghar wapisi. Despite all the achievement, he has much to prove!

3.    Wondering whether the ‘old boy’ coaches will last the distance!

In the recent past, three big clubs have torn up their strategies and called up fan-favourite ex-players to coach; Ole Solskjaer (Manchester United), Frank Lampard (Chelsea) and Mikael Arteta (Arsenal). History is mixed on this – some ‘old boys’ have flourished (Zidane, Guardiola) and some have been misdirected short-term fixes to long-term problems (Daglish’s second spell as Liverpool’s manager). This season will be a time of reckoning for Ole, Frank and Mikael, when social capital will not be sufficient cover for lack of performance. Ole is already odds-on favourite in the ‘sack race’ (the betting on which manager gets sacked first), and Frank is getting there (Chelsea’s recent purchase spree may prove a mixed blessing for him on this).

4.    Correlating big coaches and boredom!

This is the first time that Pep Guardiola will spend a 5^th season at a club – does he have it in him to rebuild a team (as he will need to do with Manchester City) and also go for the elusive Champion’s Trophy? Jurgen Klopp has had three extraordinary seasons at Liverpool (he begins his sixth season here) – can he coax one more out of the crop of players at his disposal, or will he discover that winning the EPL is one thing and retaining it is quite another? Will Jose Mourinho rediscover his mojo at Tottenham Hotspurs, or is he ‘yesterday’s one’? Will the big-name coaches perform?

5.    Continuing the ‘The man is the club’ syndrome!

Some players embody their club! Well known examples include Messi – Barcelona and Totti – Roma! I can think of three such in the EPL this season, Jamie Vardy (Leicester City); Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace) and Jack Grealish (Aston Villa). All neutrals love Leicester City for what they did in 2015-16 (win the EPL at 5,000 to 1 odds) and Vardy, a critical component of that fairy tale, continues to bang them in (he won the Golden Boot in 2019-20 for the most goals scored). Zaha continues to terrorize defences, particularly those of big teams, and contribute to the Eagles’ unpredictably – when they play well, they don’t just win – they blow you away. And Grealish, an Englishman with the ball-playing abilities of a Spaniard, was the main reason for the Villans escaping relegation last season. How will they fare this time?

My predictions for the year are in the appended table!

 

Predictions – EPL 2020-2021
Champions League Qualification	Europa League Qualification	Relegation
What I Would Like to Happen
1.     Leeds United 2.     Everton 3.     Leicester City 4.     Liverpool	5.     Wolverhampton Wanderers 6.     Brighton and Hove Albion	18. ?? 19. Chelsea 20. Manchester United
What I Think Will Actually Happen
1.     Liverpool 2.     Manchester City 3.     Chelsea 4.     Tottenham Hotspurs	5.     Everton 6.     Leeds United	18. West Bromwich Albion 19. Fulham 20. Sheffield United
5 Best Signings: Timo Werner (Chelsea), Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Tottenham Hotspurs), Ferran Torres (Manchester City), Cengiz Under (Leicester City), Alphonse Areola (Fulham)
3 Bad Signings: Edinson Cavani (Manchester United), Thiago Silva (Chelsea), Willan (Arsenal)
3 Players Who Will Achieve Their Potential: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton), Kalvin Philips (Leeds United), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal)
3 Unknowns Who Will Become Known: Tariq Lamptey (Brighton and Hove Albion), Timothy Castagne (Leicester City), Patrick Bamford (Leeds United)

 

A Tribute to Oliver Williamson (1932-2020)

 

A SHORT TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WILLIAMSON (1932-2020)

Ajit Chaudhuri – August 2020

‘Economics went astray because economists mistook beauty, clad in mathematics, for truth’[1]

It is a birthday month (I turn 57) and therefore time for some reflection. When, in the course of a career, do you do your most important work? Is it in the early years, when brain power is at its peak and a spouse, if one exists, is less demanding? Or later, when you have figured out the ways of the world and made the mistakes that enable learning? Or even later, when you’re the boss and can get things done? Or maybe towards the end, when you have reached where you are going to reach, have nothing to prove, don’t need to kiss ass, and can focus upon what you want to do?

This note is not an attempt at an answer! However, I do remember a discussion with a professor in the mid-2000s in which he mentioned an encounter with Ronald Coase, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1991. Coase was waiting at the lift of a hotel at a conference he was attending, as was another economist and his son. The latter economist recognized Coase and introduced himself, they made some polite chit-chat, and Coase then asked his son what he was doing. The young man was studying economics, so they talked about what he (the son) was working on. As Coase got off the lift, he told the young man ‘you know, when I was your age I had already written the paper that won me the Nobel.’

The paper in question, ‘The Nature of the Firm’[2] was written in 1932 and then languished for five years until it was finally published. It then languished further, until the 1960s – the period in economics when the ‘efficient markets’ school of thought was at its peak; when neo-classical economists saw their chief function as one of understanding how pricing coordinates an economy, when organizations were a mere black box or a production function that converted inputs into outputs through a price structure, when humans were the rational and selfish homo economicus, and when complexities were simplified with the extensive use of abstract mathematics.

Coase’s thinking was brought in from the cold by a group of scholars who challenged the domination of ‘efficient markets’ and asked the questions – if markets are so good at directing resources, why do companies exist? Why are some activities directed by market forces and others by firms? Why is there such a plurality of organization forms; family firms, franchises, alliances, big corporations, natural monopolies, inter alia; and how do these structures impact the economy? They were led by Oliver Williamson, who developed Coase’s ideas and used them to understand realities through a field of study entitled ‘New Institutional Economics’, thereby making economics more tangible and accessible[3] to generalists like me.

According to Coase, the firm is a response to the high cost of using markets – it is cheaper to direct tasks by fiat (i.e. via orders to employees within a hierarchical organization) than to negotiate and enforce separate contracts for every economic transaction because of what he called ‘transaction costs’. Coase was the first to spot an enduring truth, that successful economies combine the benign dictatorship of the firm with the invisible hand of the market. His ideas raised the counter question – if firms exist to reduce transaction costs, then why have market transactions at all?

It was Williamson who delved into the ‘make or buy?’ question. When should a firm buy something, rather than make it in-house? He identified three inter-related factors that governed such a decision; specificity of asset, openness of contract, and scope for opportunism. He defined an asset as specific to a transaction if its value is lower outside of a transaction than within it, and said that vertical integration (i.e. bringing it in-house) is better than going to the market when the asset is specific to the transaction. Similarly, he distinguished between spot transactions (purchasing a product once, upon immediate payment) and long-term contracts (committing to purchase a product at different times in the future at an agreed quantity and price) and said that the latter are necessarily incomplete, slightly open-ended, and sustained largely by trust – a contract stays in force primarily because its breakdown would hurt both parties. If market forces change the relative bargaining power of the parties in the future, there is scope for one party to exercise rational opportunism and break the contract. Such transactions would be better managed within an alternative form of governance, the firm. Complicated? I will try to simplify below!

Take for example the case of car manufacturer Company X and car body maker Company Y, wherein X has the option of buying car bodies from Y or the option of purchasing Y outright and bringing it within X’s operations. In the former option, i.e. X buys car bodies from Y, if Y has to purchase an expensive manufacturing die that is specific to X’s car design, it needs assurance of future purchases – if X declines to purchase car bodies in future, the expensive asset (the die) has little value and Y is screwed. Alternatively, if demand for the produced car skyrockets, Y can hold X to ransom by pushing up its price. Due to the likelihood of such opportunism in the future, it is better for X to exercise the latter option and purchase Y.

It always felt that, deserving as he was, Williamson would never be a Nobel Laureate because of Coase being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1991. The 2009 Nobel Committee’s announcement of the Nobel for Economics was therefore a wonderful surprise – Williamson had won it jointly with another giant, Elinor Ostrom, whose work on the role of institutions in natural resources management helped puncture the ‘tragedy of the commons’ doctrine that assumed humans as selfish and calculating[4].

Oliver Williamson’s passing on 21^st May 2020 did not hit the headlines in these pandemic-affected times. But his work affected many fields, and helped make policies and form regulations on the relative roles of the state, the market and institutions. This note is a short tribute to a man who ‘switched on the light where the keys were, rather than searching for keys where the light was’.

 

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[1] Krugman, Paul; The New York Times; 2009

[2] Coase, Ronald; “The Nature of the Firm”; Economica 4(16) pp 386-405; 1937

[3] Ghosh, Ranjan and Goyal, Yugank; “Oliver Williamson: The Man Who Reduced the Transaction Cost of Economics”; The Economic and Political Weekly 55(28-29), 11^th July 2020.

[4] Two more Coase acolytes have since won the Economics Nobel – Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom in 2016 for their work on the theory of incomplete contracts that helped understand which government services can benefit from being privatized, and which are better off under government control.