When Donald Trump started his zany campaign —laced with racism, xenophobia, nasty remarks about women, and endless falsehoods — most analysts said he could not possibly win the Republican primaries. Yet he did so easily. So, the very analysts who […]
Trump will not just lose, he’ll be thrashed Read More »
Are India’s statistics just cooked up to give them a good flavour? The question has been raised by critics after the news that statistical “discrepancies” in the January-March quarter were as high as 4.8% of GDP. Critics say this casts
Is govt cooking up economic growth data? Read More »
Foreign investors I met in Singapore in May were anxious to know whether Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan would get a second term. Almost all of them said that billions of dollars would flow out of India
The markets are not irrationally in love with RBI chief Raghuram Rajan Read More »
The BJP’s loose cannon Subramanian Swamy has launched a scathing attack on RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, accusing him of tight money policies that have ruined Indian industry, saddled the banks with bad debts, and slowed economic growth. Many industrialists also
If Rajan exits, so will billions in investment Read More »
Booms and busts are not aberrations. They are intrinsic to market democracies. Many folks love the idea of steady, uninterrupted progress. This is socialism’s false promise, and helps explain why that philosophy remains attractive to many despite proven repeated failure.
Why leaders should change every decade Read More »
For electoral success, economic development and electoral alliances are crucial, as shown by the results of five state elections last week. Political analysts tend to ignore economic development. They emphasize personalities, vote banks, catchy slogans and imagemanship. These certainly matter.
Economic growth, smart alliances win elections Read More »
The urban middle classes hate her, the rural masses love her. The middle classes hate to admit it, but in elections the rural masses matter more. Most of the bhadralok castigate her for ruining university autonomy, filling institutions with her
What Mamata has learnt from Nitish, Lalu Read More »
Does GDP growth matter in state elections? A statistical exercise by this newspaper some years ago suggested that if average GDP growth during the incumbent’s rule accelerated compared with the five previous years, there was a 60% chance the incumbent
State growth performance favours Mamata Banerjee and is iffy for Jayalalithaa Read More »
Upamanyu Chatterjee once wrote a book titled The Mammaries of the Welfare State. If he visited Tamil Nadu today, he would be tempted to write another called The Alcoholic Mammaries of Tamil Nadu’s Welfare State. Tamil Nadu gives away more
The alcoholic mammaries of the welfare state Read More »
Arvind Kejriwal should remember two elementary economic propositions when overhauling his odd-even scheme for cars. One, those who use public benefits (like roads) should pay levies to finance those benefits. Two, financial disincentives are better than physical bans and controls.
To ease Delhi’s congestion, make outsiders pay Read More »
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