Excerpt from the Foreword by Dr Y.V. Reddy

“Dr. P.J. Thomas preceded Professor Manmohan Singh, Dr. Bimal Jalan and Professor Kaushik Basu among others as principal Economic Advisor to Government of India. He signed the Brettonwoods agreement that ushered the IMF and the World Bank, and also signed the United Nations Charter in 1945 when he was with Government of India.
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“The present book “Collected Scientific Papers of the Pioneering Economist and Planner Dr. P J Thomas” provides a golden opportunity for all who are interested in studying the original papers written by him. It’s a yeomen service done by the author to the present and future generations of students of Economics.
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“The compilation of the papers have significant contemporary relevance. For instance, the papers deal with challenges before our country at that time, the banking problems, the state of agriculture, and above all, the problems of federal finance. Of particular significance is some of the micro data based studies. The book will
be of immense value for policy-makers as well as research students, and a desirable addition to libraries.” 

— Yaga Venugopal Reddy
     Former Governor, Reserve Bank of India
     Chairman, Fourteenth Finance Commission

Prof. P.J. Thomas played a key role as a policy maker in the years preceding and immediately following India’s Independence. E.M. Thomas has brought together in this volume the important writings of Dr. P.J. Thomas covering almost every aspect of the economy and spread over several decades. This is a painstaking work and all of us owe a deep debt of gratitude to E.M. Thomas for brining to the attention of this generation the pioneering work done by Dr. P.J. Thomas.
— C. RANGARAJAN
     Former Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister & 
     Former Governor, RBI; Chairman, Madras School of Economics

P.J. Thomas was one of the most eminent economists and economic historians of India. His book Mercantilism and East India Trade was a pioneering work of British economic history and Britain’s relation with India in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. He was much ahead of his time in thinking seriously about the reasons for India’s poverty under British rule and after. He also analysed with empathy the condition of underprivileged people in a highly hierarchical and unequal society, and he had concrete suggestions regarding how to improve their lot. This collection of Thomas’s papers will be extremely useful to all students of the Indian economy and its history.’
— AMIYA KUMAR BAGCHI
    Emeritus Professor, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata 
    Adjunct Professor, Monash University

In publishing “The Collected Scientific Papers of Pioneering Economist and Planner Dr. P.J. Thomas.” Dr. E.M. Thomas has done a yeoman service to the scholars in economics by painstakingly putting together precious articles on a variety of policy themes by one of the great Indian economists, Dr. P.J. Thomas, who had the rare distinction of advising governments in both pre-independence and postindependence period. The volume brings out rare insights into the economic challenges at the time of independence and the ingenious solutions to deal with them by a great economist.
— M. GOVINDA RAO
    Member, Fourteenth Finance Commission;
    Former Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,
    New Delhi

EM Thomas is visiting professor at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Previously he was the Co-ordinator and faculty of Inter University Centre for Financial Economics and Financial Engineering University of Calicut, and adjunct Professor at the Department of Applied Economics at University of Kannur. He was also the Associate Professor of Economics at Christ College, Irinjalakuda. He has authored more than 50 professional publications including 15 books. He obtained his Ph.D Degree from Calicut University and did his specialisation course on decentralised planning, in the University of Belgrade, Serbia, under the supervision of Professor Alexandar Jovanovic and Professor Jovan Todorovic.