The Sri Lankan government announced that it has reached an agreement with its foreign private creditors to restructure the $12.5 billion of its external debt that they hold. The agreement incorporates a novel instrument: a macro-linked bond for which the payout…
In his opus The Wealth of Nations published in 1776 Adam Smith drew a distinction between the progressive state, the stationary state and the declining state. The progressive state was one where capital accumulation would be occurring at a rate…
The coming to power of governments led by fascists is either a reality or a threat today over large parts of the world. In Europe at present there are several countries where fascists are leading governments; France was on the…
The fundamental issue raised by Hollywood writers when they had gone on a strike against being replaced by artificial intelligence, somehow receded to the background after the resolution of that particular conflict; but it remains a fundamental issue. Much has…
There has been a significant diffusion of production occurring in the world economy. Many call this phenomenon a shift from a US-led world economy to a “multipolar world economy”, but no matter what one thinks of this description, the fact…
Against all odds, in the elections to India’s parliament, whose results were announced last week, the opposition I.N.D.I.A. alliance managed to prevent the rampaging ruling party, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), from securing a majority on its own. In…
The current protests in US university campuses demanding “divestment” from firms linked to Israel’s military machine, are reminiscent of the protests that had swept these campuses in the late sixties and early seventies demanding an end to the Vietnam war.…
Once again, low and middle income countries (LMICs) are at the brutal receiving end of the fickle trajectory of international capital flows. As Figure 1 indicates, net financial flows to such countries, which increased rapidly after the Global Financial Crisis…
Thames Water, one of England’s many regional water monopolies, infamously privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and symbolising the dramatic turn in economic policy that neoliberalism implied, is finally collapsing. Unable to mobilise £500 million from shareholders who have…
India’s government has since the year of its G20 Presidency claimed to have restored the country’s role as the ‘Voice of the South’ in global dialogues. That is often backed up by reference to its efforts to focus attention on…
