Remembering Deepak Lal: The last of the true intellectuals?

Deepak put a lot of premium on evidence, hard evidence, and was a pioneer in thinking about poverty and inequality

If you wanted an example of a classic 19th Century liberal, you would have to point to Deepak. I met him first when he arrived at the World Bank, bow tie and pipe in tow, in 1983. He was a well-established scholar (and a gentleman) and I was busy in the transition from a 20th Century liberal (socially and economically left-wing) to that broadly represented by Deepak (socially liberal but one who looked for hard evidence to substantiate many so-called “liberal” economic ideas). Our bond was solidified by the closeness of our views on several subjects, but we did differ