Dear Prof. David Colander,
                                      I believe the AEA calendar will be incomplete unless Kautilya's name is added to it. I am attaching some of Kautilya's quotations. At least the first three quotaions may be included.
 
Balbir Sihag

 

Vishnugupta Chanakya Kautilya (350-283 BCE) wrote The Arthashastra-the science of wealth and welfare during the fourth century BCE. It has 150 chapters, which are distributed among fifteen books. It is very broad in scope and offers systematic and systemic analysis. He appropriately, consistently and coherently applied the concepts of opportunity cost, moral hazard, efficiency wage, asymmetric information, time inconsistency problem, risk-return trade-off, human exertion and capital accumulation as sources of prosperity, producer surplus and many other concepts.

 

Human Exertion: "The value of land is what man makes of it (7.11)." Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 619) 

 

Capita Accumulation: "Man, without wealth, does not get it even after a hundred attempts. Just as elephants are needed to catch elephants, so does wealth capture more wealth. Wealth will slip away from that childish man who constantly consults the stars. The only [guiding] star of wealth is itself; what can the stars of the sky do? (9.4)." Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 637) 

 

Analysis of Variance (almost): "Events, both human and providential, govern the world [and its affairs].  Acts of God are those which are unforeseeable and whose origin is unknown.  If the cause is knowable and hence foreseeable, its origin is human.  If an act of God results in [helping] the achievement of one's objective, it is good fortune; otherwise, it is misfortune.  [Likewise,]  any human action which increases one's wealth is a good policy; otherwise, it is a bad policy [6.2.6-12]." Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 554) 

 

Moral Hazard: "The king shall have the work of Heads of Departments inspected daily, for men are, by nature, fickle and, like horses, change after being put to work.  Therefore, the King shall acquaint himself with all the details of each Department or undertaking, such as - the officer responsible, the nature of the work, the place of work, the time taken to do it, the exact work to be done, the outlay and the profit (2.9). Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 283)

 

Asymmetric Information: "If a settlement of a tract is likely to entail heavy losses or expenditure, a king shall first sell the land, with the intention of reacquiring it, to one who will fail in the attempt at settlement.  Such agreements shall remain verbal (7.11)." Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 621)

 

Time Inconsistency Problem: "The king may face dangers even from a trusted king of equal power, when the latter has achieved his objective. Even an equally powerful king tends to become stronger after the task is accomplished and, when his power has increased, becomes untrustworthy. Prosperity changes peoples' minds (7.5)." Kautilya ([4th century BCE] 1992, 624)

 

Kautilya, Vishnugupta. [4th Century BCE] 1992. The Arthashastra, Edited, Rearranged, Translated and Introduced by L. N. Rangarajan. New Delhi: Penguin Books.