Bitcoin has left the world of finance gasping. Although the total market value of all that cryptocurrency in circulation is only a fraction of the value of the world’s financial assets, the rapid rise in the value of the currency has made it the most wanted of those assets. On January 1, 2017, the currency […]
Ever since Larry Summers and Alan Heston produced what become known as the “Penn World Tables” comparing prices and thereby the purchasing power of currencies across countries, the urge to use some deflator of market exchange rates to compare incomes across countries has been strong.
No sooner were the results of the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (relating to data collected in 2009-10) released, than they became the subject of great controversy. Surprisingly, the controversy was created not by critics of the government and its statistical system, but from within government circles! Some highly placed officials found […]
One less emphasised lesson from the global financial crisis was that developing countries that are successful in attracting foreign financial investors take a hit when such a crisis occurs because of a reverse flow of capital. Foreign financial firms needing to cover losses or meet commitments at home withdraw their capital, generating a credit crunch […]
Earlier this month all eyes were on Reserve Bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao. Every statement of his was read as signalling whether he would raise interest rates and by how much he would do so this time. With the economy having bounced back and GDP growth approaching previous peaks, the presumption was that the focus of […]
The “small round” surveys of the NSSO are usually not considered to be so good at capturing trends, because their smaller size makes them non-comparable with the quinquennial large surveys. However, the 64th Round was a much larger survey than normal (with a sample of 1,25,578 households: 79,091 in rural areas and 46,487 in urban […]
The year 2010 would be remembered as a scam-tainted year when allegations of corruption, both public and private, were difficult to keep track of. Overwhelmed by these allegations, the government has attempted to focus on the fact that India is among the fastest growing countries in the world. But even that boastful claim has been […]
The slanging match over currency and monetary policies at the annual Fund-Bank meetings, held over the second weekend of October, points to the disarray in global economic governance. While the US sought to mobilise IMF support for an effort to realign exchange rates and ensure an appreciation of the renminbi in the wake of China’s […]
For several centuries — between the 15th and the early 19th centuries — mercantilist theories dominated the attitude to trade in Europe. This was the belief that an economy that had positive net exports (through exports being greater than imports) would be wealthier because it would lead to an inflow of bullion, or assets, and […]
India’s IT industry does protest too much. Its latest peeve is that the US has decided to steeply hike, from $2300 to about $4300, the cost of a H-1B visa required for entry into the US of temporary skilled workers from abroad. The new Border Security Bill passed by the US Senate and signed into […]
Even before the turmoil caused by the global financial crisis has been adequately dealt with in terms of the adverse effects on employment and living conditions, governments across the world are being told that fiscal consolidation is the most important macroeconomic policy to be addressed. The calamities resulting from sovereign debt crises are widely advertised […]
There is only one message that comes out of Toronto, where the G20 summit has come to an end. The formation, ostensibly created to reflect changing power equations in the world economy, serves no purpose. It has turned out to be one more talking shop in which agreement to disagree is presented as a consensus. […]
Until recently, the discussion on global imbalances focused on the current account deficit of the US and the current account surplus of China, making this a bilateral rather than a multilateral problem. As a result, the process of rebalancing was seen as involving adjustments in either or both of these countries, and not so much […]
Pegging their arguments on the still ongoing drama relating to sovereign debt in Greece, conservative opinion is making a case for a reduction of the size of public debt in developed and developing countries across the world. The latest signatory to the appeal is IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who reportedly told an audience at the […]
The ongoing political crisis in Thailand has been capturing headlines for some time now, and now even appears to be heading towards some kind of climax. This political instability reflects more than the resistance of the existing establishment to the increasingly vociferous demands of those who have been marginalised from most of the benefits. It […]
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