As chief minister, Narendra Modi had to spend a few days every year in meetings with the planning commission. It was a begging trip; the planning commission decided the allocation of plan funds to states. He had to...
Socialism had its golden age after World War II. Taxes in the belligerent countries had gone sky-high during the War; people had got used to paying high income taxes. Governments had no use for the...
Last September I wrote that the troubles Syria is going through may well be due to climate change – specifically, to a decline in rainfall that has made agriculture less viable and forced people to move out...
Has India’s economic development led to convergence or divergence? One answer can be obtained from inequality. The Gini coefficient of per capita expenditure was 0.35 in 1951 and 0.34 in 2010 – hardly any change...
Economics excites economists no end, and bores the rest to death. The Economic Survey is an ideal tome for the bedside, and a perfect cure for insomnia. Having realized this in his short tenure, the...
For two hours in the year, the finance minister is the master of all he surveys. Television cameras show him all over the country; millions watch and listen to him with rapt attention. That is...
The first criterion an economist applies is, how appropriate a budget is to the macroeconomic situation. If it is inflationary, the budget must deflate, and vice versa. The current supply-demand balance is benign by Indian...
Demonetization caused widespread distress, which the media covered profusely; they were full of emotional stories – stories of how common people suffered, and uncommon rulers reveled. It is only now that we have some basic...
After World War II, there was a surge of decolonization, beginning with India’s independence in 1947; Britain and France found someone to hand over power in colony after colony and left in a hurry. Some...
To someone who agrees with neither Jawaharlal Nehruvian students nor self-proclaimed nationalists, their views must sound parochial. The comparison may not be obvious, for parochial conventionally means limited to a small region. But it will...
The cow has been in the news since the present government came to power. There has always been a difference of opinion between those who think that the cow is a species of mother and...
Economics can be good entertainment, as readers of this column might have realized. But it is also concerned with people’s satisfaction; so it would be legitimate to ask if it has made anyone happy, other...
