Separated at birth!

The World Economic Forum has set up a new task force in January this year with the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and his counterpart at the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, to study how rapid changes in technology affect financial stability and growth. However, there are more similarities between the two economist-governors than sharing a global task force.

Raghuram Rajan predicted the
2008 financial crisis

In 2005, during the heydays of easy money and sub-prime mortage, Rajan warned about the growing risks in the financial system and proposed policies that would reduce such risks. Rajan's comments evinced criticism from no less than the former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers who termed the warnings “misguided” and  Rajan a "luddite". However, following the 2008 economic crisis, Rajan's views came to be seen as prescient. 

Carney's actions as the Governor of the Bank of Canada, prior to donning the mantle at the Bank of England, are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the financial crisis that began in 2007. The most important being the decision to cut interest rates in March 2008, only a month after his appointment.

Now as the head of the Bank of England, Carney is warning against a possible British exit from the European Union. Carney's argument is straight and simple - overlooking the risks do not necessarily reduce them - a somewhat similar vein to what Rajan articulated in 2005.

Mark Carney is blamed for
scare mongering 

Carney's comments attracted severe criticism from British politicians of the 'Leave Campaign' who are alleging politicisation of institutions and that the governor is toeing the line of Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne in the fractured Tory government.

Rajan has also drawn flak from the likes of the maverick Indian politician Subramanium Swamy, who is baying for his blood in a bid to hit the incumbent Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his (Swamy) mission to grab the chair for running India's finances. A friend posted that Rajan was seen at the bustling shopping district of Oxford Street on Saturday and his wife was at the Boots, possibly getting some anti-septic cream to soothe the wounds inflicted by the bristling broadside of a desperate Dr Swamy.

Carney met his wife, Diana Fox a British economist specialising in developing nations, while at the University of Oxford, and Rajan is married to Radhika Puri Rajan, whom he met while they were both students at IIM Ahmedabad. Radhika teaches at the University of Chicago Law School.

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
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