India conducting one of history’s great economic experiments  

Similarly, if massage parlours in Bangkok were closed, it would reduce prostitution. However, prostitution and black money were there before Prime Minister Narendra Modi was born and will certainly outlive him. 
There are plenty of countries that don’t have a big black-cash problem, but they are not free from corruption. Corruption is like the arcade game of Whack-a-Mole, wherein you hit the mole wherever it pops up and reappears from another hole. Countries that live on corruption as tax havens include Andorra, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Panama.
To have an intelligent conversation about this, we must disregard the partisan views of both the Indian government and those of the opposition. Instead, let’s look at what is really happening. If this is just short-term pain that the public must suffer before corruption is eliminated, Modi will have accomplished a miracle. But so far nobody can clearly define that “short term”. It could be a few months, a year or a few years. 
If pain is defined only by long queues to exchange banknotes, then the suffering will be over as soon as the window for exchanging the notes closes. However, if it’s judged by a decrease in productivity and GDP, as it should be, then the jury is still out.
The Indian government is preaching forbearance, just as Germany did to the Greeks during the euro zone crisis: “How can black money be right? How can living beyond your means be right? Everything will be fine in the long run if you just do the right thing.” To paraphrase economist John Maynard Keynes, “In the long run, we are all dead.”
Indian “demonetisation” has turned out to be one of the world’s biggest economic experiments and a case study for micro-, macro- and behavioural economists. It’s one for the textbooks, and Modi’s name will live forever – in greatness or in infamy or, more likely, with economists arguing on the merits versus the demerits and causing even more confusion. Harry Truman famously said, “Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, “On the one hand, on the other.”
I wish the Indian government the best of luck for a successful conclusion to this experiment, but I’m not holding my breath.
Suthep Kittikulsingh