The Nobel laureate himself was jubilant, and rightly so. Newspapers reported that he never ceased to smile during the entire length of the public reception. He was all smiles since then. I too was truly proud that a fellow Bengali had been awarded the prize. I rejoiced. Nevertheless, an unabashedly two-handed economist that I am, I instinctively looked at what lay on the other hand. Public pronouncements from Professor Yunus, as well as the flood of writings on the award in the newspapers only sharpened that instinct.

For a starter, I soon recalled that it was not entirely unusual for a Nobel laureate to say a word or two in praise of some of the other deserving candidates for the prize around the globe who had worked for peace on earth. A certain expression of humility on his part would have been noble. Given the contentious nature of the Peace Prize nowadays, and the dubious superiority of peace through poverty alleviation over peace achieved by other more direct means, such humility would also not have been out of place. I recalled too that quite a few other organizations in the country have been fighting poverty for years.

What was not said is of course less important than what was. And there was a plenty of the latter. First, it was said by the maestro himself that as a country we had, on October 13, reached a highway of such elevation that we would never again come down from it.

The Bangladesh of October 13 was not the same as the Bangladesh of the day before, we were told. He sounded oracular. His words echoed from a thousand mouths. All of this was exhilarating enough. But was it really meaningful? Euphoria can be dangerous stuff. We should know. We as a nation were on a glorious highway after our liberation in 1971 -- a far greater feat than an individual's winning a Nobel Prize -- and it did not take us take long to exit into a morass.

Euphoria can easily border on the psychedelic. Overwhelmed by euphoria, some serious people have made pronouncements that struck me as rather odd. A dear friend of mine, a learned commentator, evoked Adam Smith while praising micro enterprises supported by micro-credit. He seemed to think that economic activities supported by Grameen Bank financing involved division of labour a la Adam Smith which came to be considered as an important source of productivity growth and a major pillar of a modern economy.

In fact, possibilities of division of labour, as seen by the founder of modern economics, and envisaged mainly in manufacturing processes, are rather limited in very small family enterprises such as the ones financed by micro-credit (unless of course, for example, a way can be devised whereby one set of people raises a part of a goat or chicken and another set of people raises another part and so on, and the parts are then assembled into a final goat or a chicken!) Micro-credit does not necessarily induce greater division of labour and higher productivity.

A prominent economist of the country has declared, in the same burst of feel good and pride, that Professor Yunus was the pioneer in application of theories of economics. It is not entirely clear to me which theories he had in mind. But this brings to my mind some of Professor Yunus's own pronouncements on economics not so long ago.

Speaking at the annual gathering of the Bangladesh Economic Association in 1998, he castigated "text-book economics" as an "exclusive playground for blood-thirsty profit -seekers," denounced it as being "responsible for creating the world that we live in," and declared that the "seeds of poverty are planted firmly in the pages of economic text-books." These are words of mighty prejudice. It is rather difficult to see him pioneering the application of any theory whatsoever from the accursed science.

There is, though, one important idea from textbook economics that lurks behind Professor Yunus's micro-financing. Economics tell us that the real rate of return on capital in poor, capital-scarce countries can be high, often considerably higher than in rich, capital-abundant countries. One might argue that the high rates of interest charged on loans offered by the Grameen Bank, and the reported ability of the borrowers to repay these loans, pretty much bear out this idea. But I do not suppose Professor Yunus, with his disdain of economics, would care much to dwell on this. And why should he fall back on an esoteric idea from economics that nobody understands in order to defend high interest rates that everybody does? In any case, to do so would only bring the alleged exorbitance of interests charged into sharper focus.

Professor Yunus rightly emphasizes the human aspect of the Grameen endeavour. Raising the self esteem of the poor by enabling them to take economic decisions on their own must be regarded as one of the noblest of causes. In the final analysis, however, it is all about raising their level of income and alleviation of poverty. The number of borrowers of Grameen loans has been rising, so has been the average income level of the borrowers. Grameen's official figures put the number of borrowers at 6.7 million. Around 58 percent of the borrower families are also said to have climbed above the poverty. These are impressive numbers, though the latter figure is probably subject to a great deal of uncertainty, given the nature of the concept of poverty, and the absence of an independent estimate of success.

These numbers should however be put in perspective. The number of borrowers is still small in a nation of 150 million. More significant is the contribution of Grameen Bank and activities financed by the bank's loans. That contribution is still a tiny fraction of the total gross domestic product of the country. The bank's website (www.grameen-info.org) puts that contribution at 1.1 percent for 1996, some twenty years after the project was initiated by Professor Yunus. Figures for later years are not available on the website, one wonders why. A figure of much beyond 1-2 per cent is probably unlikely for recent years. (I am willing to eat the humble pie if the conjecture turns out to be widely off the mark.)

The contribution of Gameen Bank to poverty alleviation in the country as a whole is thus still quite small. Adding the contributions of other non-government organizations like the Brac, which have gone unsung, in fighting poverty, one would arrive at a somewhat more respectable number of people who have crossed the poverty line. More respectable, and yet still small.

One hopes that the limits of micro-credit, along with its possibilities, in ridding the country of poverty -- to consign poverty to the museum, in Professor Yunus's hyperbole -- will be recognized before we are all swept off our feet by the wind of euphoria that the prize has generated. Fast economic growth remains the most important way to reduce poverty, and far more than micro-credit will be needed to achieve it. No messianic vision can take its place.

Mahfuzur Rahman is a former United Nations economist.