Before joining the neo-liberal order, India used to have “rupee payment arrangements” with the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries under which the main international reserve currency, the US dollar, was used neither for settling transactions nor even as…
In an important new paper (“External balance sheets of emerging economies: low-yielding assets, high-yielding liabilities”, Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 9 No. 2, Summer 2021, pp. 232–252) the Turkish economist Yilmaz Akyuz has identified new channels of transmission of global…
As governments begin to vaccinate their populations against COVID-19 to win herd immunity, attention would turn to addressing the multiple crises that are the legacy of the pandemic. One such only partially recognised and half-heartedly addressed so far is the…
Electronics was rightly picked as one of the focus sectors, when the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) was launched with the aim of increasing India’s self-reliance in the manufacturing sector. The pandemic-related disruptions starkly revealed the perils of our digital economy’s…
The complete absence of any meaningful fiscal response from the Indian government in the face of one of the biggest economic crises ever faced, cries out for explanation. One argument has been that the central government is concerned about its…
Discussions of China’s growing global presence normally refer to its large investments overseas and lending by the state-owned China Development Bank and China sponsored multilateral institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank. But there has been…
A month after the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement among 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific, speculation on what could be its economic and strategic fallout has waned. Attention seems to have been diverted by the more…
South Korea, long lauded as a “model” for developing countries looking to transit to developed status, had lost some of its sheen after the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis. Yet, the return of stability after the crisis and the global…
Provisional trade figures released by the Ministry of Commerce indicate that India’s aggregate trade balance over the period April-August 2020 was in surplus to the tune of $14.2 billion, as compared with a deficit of $45.11 billion in the corresponding…
Multiple indicators reveal that the pre-pandemic deceleration in growth segued into a deep recession that persists six months after the first reported Covid-19 case. But official optimism hasn’t waned. Some spokespersons promise a V-shaped recovery. Others clutch at every straw…
