Recent discussions on economic policy in the US and other high-income nations make it appear that there is only one domain and one instrument that really matter: monetary policy and interest rates. Whether on the eve of meetings of the…
There is a paradox at the core of the efflorescence of science that has occurred over the last millennium. In essence this efflorescence has the potential to increase human freedom immensely. It increases the capacity of man within the man-nature dialectic; scientific…
With India experiencing a severe second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing decentralized lockdowns, a crisis of loss of jobs and livelihoods and resulting hunger is being reported from across the country. A reluctant central government has, therefore, been forced…
A common refrain in assessments of India’s current economic predicament is that the economy is performing below potential because of a lack of ‘liquidity’. Often, this is merely a means of stating that an inadequacy of credit flow is choking…
The European Central Bank last month pushed its benchmark interest rate to minus 0.5 per cent, which means that if it gives a loan of 100 euros then it would be paid back only 99.5 euros at the expiry of…
Mid-September saw some unusual developments in US money markets, which gave market players and monetary authorities the jitters. Over three days, a key short term interest rate rose sharpy to reach levels last touched about a decade ago, when the…
The Brahmastra, or ultimate weapon, of 10% reservation in government employment for economically weaker sections (EWS) has been cynically deployed already, but even that does not seem to be delivering the desired public approval. Perhaps the general public has wised…
Former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has come out openly against the Indian government’s measure of demonetizaton of currency notes in November 2016, in a speech delivered recently at the University of California at Berkeley. Since Rajan is an economist…
The stand-off between the Modi government and the Reserve Bank of India has generated a false discourse on the one hand and an illusion on the other. In this discourse the RBI’s position, articulated by its Deputy Governor, is that…
The ongoing differences between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government over the central bank’s autonomy , specifically in terms of decision-making, is a classic example of how the weakening of the domestic institutions can potentially destabilise the economy.…
