SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L'ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 1136 
porting fertilizer and possibly of importing grain to feed the popu. 
lation during the period before the constructed fertilizer plant comes 
‘nto production. This is an appropriate cost of the program; it is 
an opportunity cost and must be added to the cost of the program 
n analyzing what constitutes an optimal policy. It is not clear that 
Professor MAHALANOBIS has in fact done this. 
MAHALANOBIS 
I have only five minutes. I should again stress that it is not 
logical to wait an indefinite time for a true optimum solution. As the 
people of my country are hungry we have to import food stuff. We 
have been doing this for some time. As a matter of fact we have 
a long history of not producing a single kilo of fertilizer; we have 
the experience of a million and a quarter of our countrymen dying 
of famine in 1942-43. We are of course importing foodgrains and 
fertilizers for current needs. But we have to take a long view and 
we are also setting up fertilizer factories with imported machinery. 
We have spent during the last fifteen years perhaps two thousand 
million dollars to import foodgrains, fertilizers, and machinery to set 
up fertilizer factories. Looking 15 years ahead, we think it is worth 
spending one hundred million dollars to establish a factory to produce 
machinery for new fertilizer factories. This I think is the real 
argument. 
ALLAIS 
I have only two points. The first one has been already stressed 
oy Prof. DorFMAN. 1 am not convinced by Prof. MAHALANOBIS’s 
answer but I think we have not enough time to discuss this very 
interesting problem. My second question relates to how the equation 
of page 7 was derived? Did you assume that real national income is 
proportional to real capital for this derivation or not? 
+5] Mahalanobis II - pag. 37