We learn from everyone, but only a few inspire us! And among them, a rare few leave a life lasting impact. Prof. S Madheswaran is one such personality.

He was one of the resource persons at a 3 day workshop organised by the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad. On the first day, he delivered a lecture on “Value of Statistical Life”. Topic sounds philosophical, but it was a highly econometric analysis on statistical valuation of human life. His talk was post lunch and though the idea of assigning a value to human life was intriguing I did not focus much on the econometric aspects. Day 1 was usual.

On day 2, Prof was scheduled to deliver a session on dummy variable and their application in STATA. He started with a presentation and few demonstrations in STATA. Along side, he was asking us a few questions and soon he realised our understanding of econometrics is not complete or up to his satisfaction. Immediately he shifted to teaching us econometrics and all his 4 sessions through the two days became a crash course masterclass on the subject.

Even without going into what or how he taught, his concern for the ultimate outcome was touching. He did not worry about the session topics given to him, as in he did not look at them as a task to be completed and checked off. He reasoned that, teaching STATA or even advanced topics are not of much value if we do not have conceptual clarity on the basics. Spending his valuable time giving us fundamental clarity will help us students become better than just demonstrating some functions in STATA. Its not that he did not do those, he continued to demonstrate the topics he taught in STATA, just that he choose to spend more of his time teaching us the idea behind the function and models.

Initially when he started asking us questions, we were little hesitant and unreceptive. He had a towering personality and questions by a guest lecturer itself was a new experience. But soon the whole cohort got adapted to this. Some of his questions were so basic, but the text book answers we gave were not enough for him.

During his teaching he did two things repeatedly. One, he put forward, questions that are fundamental to econometrics. He questioned things we take for granted or things we do not think about! Why do we predominantly use linear regression models to study a non linear world? Why do we do log transformations? (not when to use them) etc. His answers were eye opening and changed the way we approach the subject

Two, he connected the topics to real world scenarios. For example, where do we use Dummy variables? Text Book says use dummy variable when you have qualitative or nominal variables. That’s a theoretical statement. Prof added that we use dummy variables in the following 4 scenarios, i) qualitative variables (policy variable), ii) temporal variables, iii) broad grouping of quantitative variables and iii) spatial groupings. This immediately gives a practical dimension to the topic.

Here is an example where both of these happened. Standard textbooks suggest that choosing a functional form is an empirical exercise and they introduce a number of models with an associated specific use case . Elasticity – log linear model, growth rate – log-lin model etc. They mention in passing that you can use theory to identify the functional model but predominantly textbooks make it look like we have to pick the functional form that best fits the data. Prof took a very basic data and applied various functional forms to it, explained that different forms have different interpretations and that they all are valid. He demonstrated how the functional form should flow from the theory and not from the data.

These might seem trivial, but as a novice economist, with lot of skepticism towards econometrics, they were very significant revelations. I was looking at whatever econometrics I learnt in the entire first year in a new light and I started appreciating the subject.

On both days of the workshop, Prof Madheswaran had important commitments after the session and Jajati sir was constantly reminding about the time, but Prof did not bother about the time or anything for that matter, and he ended the session only when he had taught us as much as he could. Passion is not something I could convey through such examples. Everyone of us at the workshop could feel his enthusiasm and passion towards teaching us.

Anyone with such an immense command over a subject and passion towards teaching it, is naturally inspiring. But he did not stop there. Prof was constantly sharing various anecdotes. They were all related to his success and accomplishments but not once did they come across as boasting. He was motivating us and trying to inculcate a certain personality into us. Prof mentioned about how he came from an humble background and achieved so much. If he could do it we all could do it. He also spoke about how his accomplishments gave him the self-assuredness to stand tall before any authority. Some of the anecdotes were moving and I was stirred by the end of the workshop.

His நிமிர்வு* reminded me of my mentor Jeyamohan. I admire a lot of people, but very rarely I come across a personality that I bow down before, and Prof Madheswaran is one of those. It is indeed a blessing to have learnt from him. Unfortunately he does not work much in public finance and I will not be able to work under him. But, he will remain an inspiration and a role model forever.

*நிமிர்வு can be loosely translated as pride without any of the negative connotations