March 2009 - Posts - An Awkward Corner

March 2009 - Posts

Time To Dump Rajan And Mistry Reports?

Posted by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha at 
I recently had lunch with a few British civil servants and asked them whether they have given up on the possibility that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will further open up the Indian banking sector this April, as promised in its famous road map. They claimed to be mildly optimistic that financial sector reform is not a dead cause in India. TCA Srinivasa...

More>>

Remembering Vajpayee: Where Have The Great Political Orators Gone?

Posted by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha at 
The tenant of this Awkward Corner is taking a break from economics and straying into an area he knows even less about --- politics. Let me start with a story, as far as I can remember it. An acquaintance who now heads a private sector bank, and was a journalist and economist in previous lives, had recounted this to me a few years ago. He was then employed...

More>>

Introspection Time For Economists

Posted by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha at 
It is by now widely accepted that the economic crisis has blown away the comfortable consensus that ruled academic and policy economics for maybe at least two decades. It is now introspection time. Willem Buiter posted a typically sharp and caustic attack on contemporary monetary economics , which he has called "useless". "Most mainstream...

More>>

Question: What Variable Should The Fiscal Stimulus Target?

Posted by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha at 
Government around the world have been running up higher fiscal deficits in a bid to support their economies. But should there be an explicit variable that they should target? Christina Romer, a fine macroeconomist and chief of Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, says her president is keen that the stimulus should protect jobs. "The...

More>>