The Economic Times

India cannot return to rapid growth till the world economy recovers. And that cannot happen till the US economy recovers. Alas, the Obama administration is prolonging the recession by avoiding surgery to remove dead wood from its financial sector. Some […]

Five years (2003-08) of near-9% growth suddenly seems a distant memory. The CSO estimated GDP growth in October-December 2008 at just 5.3%. Indeed, the IMF estimates that India will average just 5.1% growth in the calendar year 2009. There is

India cannot grow fast again till the US economy recovers. And US recovery depends on reviving the housing sector, whence the downswing began. Alas, the Obama Plan for housing is a crutch, not a cure. Putting all the blame on

We are on the verge of a revolution worth half a trillion dollars. After almost a decade of effort, India is about to move to a unified Goods and Services Tax (GST) to replace the current plethora of central and

Governments across the globe are using Keynesian stimuli to revive drooping economies. Even George Bush has presided over the greatest stimuli in US history, with a projected fiscal deficit of $ 1.2 trillion and monetary injection of almost $ 2

The global recession is going to be worse than expected. The developed countries as a whole will suffer a fall in GDP in 2009, the first fall since World War II. India cannot escape the global downswing. But the mid-term

How hard will India’s economic growth be hit by the global financial crisis and recession? Widely varying forecasts for the next financial year, 2009-10 have been made by three leading economists—Arvind Virmani, Chief Economic Advisor of the government; Raghuram Rajan,

After the Mumbai terrorist attack, every Tom, Dick and Harry has become a counter-terrorism expert. Drawing room experts and newspaper columnists hold forth on how incompetent the authorities are, and how the attack could have been foiled if only this

Across the globe, politicians from Manmohan Singh to Barack Obama plan to boost government spending to revive flagging economies. Especially popular are big infrastructure projects, widely seen as an excellent way to give a Keynesian boost to economies. Yet this

Leftists claim that the global financial crisis was caused by reckless deregulation and greed. Rightists blame half-baked financial regulations and perverse incentives. Actually, the financial sector is deeply regulated, with major roles for both the state and markets. It was