A guest lecture was organised for the students of second-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) on the topic "Global Supply Chains". The guest speaker was C. Veeramani, Professor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai,
The lecture began with a welcome address presented by the organizing faculty, Asst. Prof. Mitali Gupta. The guest speaker firstly, helped students understand the importance of the study Economics for a law student. He explained how the economic progress and development of countries rely on sound laws and policies which are framed by those closely working with the law. He provided various interesting examples of how different policies like stringent labour laws, land acquisition policies, industrial licensing policies, and international policies on aids and tariffs, inter alia, affect the economic progress of a country.
The speaker then proceeded to the topic of global supply chains. As the speaker moved on to the details of this topic, he informed the students how economic data is misrepresented in election campaigns and political propaganda to mislead the people. He then explained how economic estimates are computed in determining the global trade of a country. He distinguished between the computation of trade data based on gross value of the exported products and the computation based on value added to the exported products and further highlighted how data figures tend to get inflated using the gross computation method. He illustrated the case study of Apple IPods to facilitate the better understanding of the students.
The speaker also spoke about immigration and trade in the labour market. He explained the concept of marginal productivity of workers and the application of the concept to wage rate determination.
The enriching lecture was followed by an interactive session where Prof. Veeramani answered the queries raised by students and also acquainted them with some online tools which can help the students advance their interest in international trade. The students were left better informed about the dynamics of international trade after this lecture.
