C. Raja Mohan in The American Interest on India's strategic directions. A Reuters report on how Pakistanis are responding to the global backlash against Pakistan. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley has some great insights into economic development. M. K. Venu on corruption in Indian telecom. Sanjeev Sanyal in the Business Standard on how to think about the role of the university in the city. When Israel graduated into OECD, it got dropped from the MSCI Emerging Markets index, which helped India...
Friday, 28 May 2010
The new econometrics
Posted on 01:28 by Unknown
Lalonde (1986) destroyed the old micro-econometrics as thoroughly as Lucas (1976) destroyed the old macro-econometrics, though it was a more nihilistic destruction (``it just ain't working'') and not a sweet idea as in the Lucas critique. In recent years, these ideas have gained ground, including a symposium in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Falkenblog has a pithy line: if your result shows up only via coefficient t-stats in 2-stage least squares, but not a graph, it isn't there. As someone who did home-brewn matching back in 1995, I feel...
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
The importance of the Standard Chartered IDR
Posted on 19:17 by Unknown
I have a column in Financial Express today on this. You might like to also see this older blog po...
The Exchange Rate Regime in Asia: From Crisis to Crisis
Posted on 07:19 by Unknown
A new paper.Also see the stock of papers from the NIPFP DEA Research Progr...
Friday, 21 May 2010
The undersupply of criticism
Posted on 06:20 by Unknown
There is an undersupply of criticismFreedom of speech, and trenchant criticism, is of course central to civilisation. Too often, people jump to the conclusion that in communist China there is no freedom of speech, but in democratic India, all is well on this score. This represents an underestimation of how hard it is, to get to freedom of speech.The heart of the problem is: The people who are supposed to speak up maximise for themselves and not for society. The costs of being a critic -- by being at the receiving end of hostility from...
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Israel graduated into OECD
Posted on 02:13 by Unknown
Israel graduated into OECD. Theirs is an interesting saga.In 1977, they liberalised the capital account, and got themselves into a mess. This opening of the capital account was then reversed.In the 1990s, they got back to this issue, and by this time, the `impossible trinity' was better understood. By 2003, all capital controls had been removed, alongside a shift to a floating exchange rate and inflation targeting. Capital outflows were liberalised as well, so their typical configuration involves large capital inflows alongside large...
Addressing the problems of Rupeezone
Posted on 01:06 by Unknown
While everyone is pondering the ways in which Eurozone is not an optimal currency area, I found myself worrying about the ways in which Rupeezone is not an optimal currency area. In the Financial Express today, I have a column: Addressing the problems of Rupeezone.Here are interesting materials on Greece which set the stage for this: A money too far by Paul Krugman, in the New York Times. A response by Greg Mankiw on his blog. He refers to this AER article from 1986 by Christine Romer, and this article by ...
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Comments are now moderated
Posted on 11:52 by Unknown
An employee of Unicon Investment Solutions started spamming this blog on a big scale (over 50 commentspams a day). So, sadly, comments are now moderated. Blogger: you really must have a mechanism to shutoff a given person from posting commen...
Friday, 7 May 2010
Interesting readings
Posted on 02:13 by Unknown
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express on the problems of getting to an effective State. Can the courts help get us out of the mess that is Indian labour law? A report in the Indian Express says that the courts are inclined towards penalising striking workers of Indian Railways for the pain they have caused commuters of Bombay. Similar principles can help put the fear of large financial penalties upon political parties contemplating disruptive activities also. As an example, the courts have stopped the Shiv Sena from producing noise...
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Investigation in New York
Posted on 20:38 by Unknown
The first and foremost function of government is law and order, the proper functioning of police and judiciary.US authorities have built up an impressive track record for getting hold of the bad guys after an attack. In the case of the bombing attempt at Times Square, investigators got the attacker 53 hours after the attack, and in the nick of time before he'd make it to Dubai. The New York Times is doing a great job of telling the story: A suspect leaves clues at every turn by Jim Dwyer. Suspect is said to admit to role in plot...
Monday, 3 May 2010
Building financial supervision agencies
Posted on 17:23 by Unknown
I have a column on this in Financial Express tod...
The cutting edge of Indian financial reform
Posted on 02:59 by Unknown
In recent years, there has been an upsurge of difficulties in Indian finance, rooted in the `financial regulatory architecture' - the block diagram of which agency does what. A lot of what is found in India's present block diagram is rooted in obsolete legislation.On the SEBI/IRDA problem about ULIPs, Vivek Kaul is writing a series of good pieces in DNA: Why IRDA seems an industry lobby and not a regulator, Guess what got SEBI's goat?. Also see Jayanth Varma in Financial Express. Deepak Shenoy has a good post showing...
Sunday, 2 May 2010
The bogey of exports growth
Posted on 09:24 by Unknown
There is a lot of talk about rupee appreciation in recent weeks. It is claimed that rupee appreciation is bad for exports growth and that RBI must trade in the rupee-dollar market so as to force the exchange rate back to (say) Rs.50 a dollar. I wrote a piece in Financial Express yesterday, about the real effective exchange rate, exports growth, and the Chinese exports mirac...
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