In this KBC season, one needs to be equipped with questions of all kinds especially on Indian states, history, geography etc.
Deepak Mohanty of RBI in this speech says Goa is the richest State in India. The speech is a snapshot of the Goan economy and financial system and is a nice one.
An interesting thng to research is whether economists turn philosophers post a deep crisis like this one. The reasons to write more about society, people etc could be different. For some it could be that economics does not make sense anyways, some realise we need to bring a different perspective to the current events etc.
So, may be some historians can see whether economists started writing things about morals, society etc more frequently during Great Depression. And compare it with 2007 crisis. My hypothesis would be yes they turn onto such topics.
Luigi Zingales of Chicago University writes this superb piece on the topic. He is one of the finest financial economists and has written some amazing papers with Raghuram Rajan.
He sayd American system is unique as it is based on merit and Americans believe meritocracy should always be rewarded. There is no role of luck etc in American society. Those who work hard and are smart should make the gains. This is declining due to the economic crisis which is shaking the basic foundations of the American system.
Central bank Swaplines were used extensively during this crisis not just between between developed country central banks but also between developed and developing country central banks. They were used during the 9/11 attack as well but was just between major economies central banks. In this crisis, the usage was far more.
The idea behind swaplines is to provide foreign currency to banks/finance companies which need the foreign currency. Now a domestic central bank can only provide unlimited liquidity in its own currency. In case firms need foreign currency liquidity, these swaplines are useful.
I came across this press release from Central Bank of Turkey. They have tied up a swap line with State Bank of Pakistan (Pakistan Central Bank). It says:
A superb post in WSJ Blog. Economists alone can’t offer lessons in all walks of life. There are some lessons from other walks of life for economics/economists too. Infact that is how social sciences should be building the field from different streams. But economics just overpowers all the others.
In this post, Peter Matheson, chief economist at the British Embassy in Washington says financial crisis can be like horror movies. So there could be some lessons from horror movies on handling financial crisis as the actors in the film survive and fight the horrors in the movie.
