Minneapolis Fed’s quarterly magazine always has these super long interviews of top econs and their work.
The recent edition profiled the work of Prof. Elhanan Helpman of Harvard Univ. Prof. Helpman is also on the perennial waitlist for the elusive Prize for his work on international trade. Together with Paul Krugman he is credited for developing New Trade Theory (apart from his super work on Growth Theory etc which the interview tells you).
Maneet Ahuja of CNBC has written a new book called, The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World’s Top Hedge Funds.
She discusses the book in this interview:
Deepak Mohanty of RBI gives really good speeches.
In his recent speech, he explains how India’s money markets have evolved and developed over the years. It also has some basics about money market and its role in an economy..
He makes three suggestions towards the end:
Apologies for being off blogging for a while…..Have been on leave and could not blog ..
I could not track the recent shocking events in Delhi as much would have liked..And once again it points to the glaring and widening governance deficit in India. While trying to catch up witrh the various statements and views, one is really shocked even more. We as voters need to be really sensitive to the kind of people we have been electing to represent us.
Just heard another insipid speech from India’s PM….After the infamous “money does not grown on trees” speech here was another one…And it came after many such pleas and requests from public that why doesn’t PM address the nation during such times.
Incidentally, I was reading this interview on some best speeches selected by Clarence B Jones (former personal counsel, adviser, draft speech writer and close friend of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.). Visitors can help compile a similar set of speeches given by India’s leaders. It has been a while we have heard any such speeches/statements from our leaders.
Eddie Yue, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority gives this speech on consumer protection in financial products.
HKMA has an interesting strategy of consumer protection. It is a mix of classical and behavioral approaches to fin reg:
The lectures are online.
More than economics (Shapley, Roth here), I was curious to read the Peace lecture by EU officials..
Roth lists many pioneers towards the end who have contributed/contributing to the area of market research with pictures and profile. That is a super gesture calling development of market design as a team work
Yet to read them..
A very different kind of a speech by Dr Narendra Jadhav of Planning Commission. His speech is titled as “Empowerment of Dalits and Adivasis Role of Education in the Emerging Economy”.
He first twists the interpretation of the famous story of Eklavya and Drona. It is usually epitomised as a classic tale between student and teacher (atleast that is how it is told to kids). However, there is another interpretation to it:
Actually, the tale can be seen in a very different light. Ekalavya was a representative of marginalized strata of society. He was denied empowerment through education by Guru Dronacharya, who embodied the high-born and hence the establishment. In demanding the right thumb of Ekalavya, the guru was not only protecting his intellectual property rights, but he was also perpetuating a social order that was inherently unjust. The moral of the fable is simply that power of establishment will remain the guarded position of the highborn, striving to ensure that an outcaste remains a lowly outcaste. Paralyzed by the establishment, the outcaste will never dare to question it. Ekalavya was cleverly cornered into sacrificing his strength, and as a consolation, his devotion was glorified. His silent consent was transformed into a myth that actually promotes submission among the disempowered. This is not a story about guru bhakti or “devotion to the teacher.” This is a story of traditional disempowerment of Dalits and Adivasis in the Indian society.
He goes on to explain the woes of dalits and adivasis in India. He stresses on the importance of education and creating a more inclusive society which is still very unfair..
Another super stuff from Godrej Archives annual lecture series. The speaker is Dr. Dwijendra Tripathi, former IIMA prof of Business history (see his excellent views on business history here).
The lecture looks at the various myths surrounding Indian business history:
This paper generated a huge interest in India’s business history. Well I just discovered this super archive of Godrej Group which has maintained all the records on the group’s history and so on..
It has this annual lecture series where noted speakers speak on business history/related topics. Unfortounately, not all have a link of the lecture.
Ross Bassett of North Carolina State University (Associate Professor, Department of History) gives a fascinating account of MIT’s connection with India’s Nationalism/ Swadesi movement. There is a pdf of his lecture and is quite an interesting read.
It shows how certain visionaries sent their relatives to train at MIT to help build engineering skills. The idea was to build capacity and help develop India both during struggle for independence and post-independence. More interestingly. they came from families associated with Mahatma:
Deepak Mohanty, ED of RBI’s speeches are usually excellent and full of ideas and perspectives. In a recent speech, he summarises the developments.
He divides the phases of BoP in six phases:
India’s BoP evolved reflecting both the changes in our development paradigm and exogenous shocks from time to time. In the 60 year span, 1951-52 to 2011-12, six events had a lasting impact on our BoP: (i) the devaluation in 1966; (ii) first and second oil shocks of 1973 and 1980; (iii) external payments crisis of 1991; (iv) the East Asian crisis of 1997; (v) the Y2K event of 2000; and (vi) the global financial crisis of 2008. I will analyse the BoP trend in this sequence.
BoP and GDP are interconnected greatly as shown in this must read manual on BoP. So, what happens in BoP impacts GDP and vice-versa. So, if one is giving a ppt on trends in GDP he could look at the same six phases for easier classification of India’s macro story.
Conclusions:
Nice read and coverage on the issue..
A fab speech from former chief justice of India – Mr. K.G. Balakrishnan.A very different and important perspective on impact of globalisation. Realted to area of law and economics..
He says globalisation impacts legal systems in two ways – One is the legal challenge thrown to globalisation because of rise in international trade etc. Two, the impact of globalisation on legal sytems:
Yet another interesting speech from Justice Kajtu titled as What is Urdu? (Earlier speech on history of India here)
He explains how Urdu came up as a language and grew as a language. It has now been lost and needs to be revived (Kajtu makes the case for Sanskrit as well).
He says Urdu was basically a khariboli:
Liz Warren has recently become the Senator for Massachusetts Financial industry managed to keep her away from the Consumer Financial Products Bureau which was her brainchild. It will be interesting to see what role she plays as a Senator..
Here is a nice suggestion from Prashant Saran, Whole Time Member of SEBI on regulation of financial products. He says it is is wrong to say fin products are different and cannot be regulated:
A super interview of Eugene F. Fama by Robert Litterman.
What was his switch moment which led to development of his core ideas? Well, it was his work experience as a stock market analyst:
A must read lecture by Justice Markanday Katju by all Indians and those interested in India. I just stumbled upon it while searching for previous Nehru Memorial lectures after Aung San Suu Kyi gace the 2012 lecture.
He discusses five points:
A fascinating speech by Norges Bank Deputy Governor Jan F. Qvigstad for history and economic history students.
He says most scientific fields have their set of truths:
I was amazed to read this speech from Dr Ramachandra Guha. Not on economics though..
He compares the attack on WTC on 9/Sep/2001 with another event held on the same date in South Africa:
Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB comes to the rescue of economists and state of economics.
He says we may have missed figuring the onset of the crisis.
A nice speech by Raghuram Rajan at ISB’s grad day 2012. The speech is on Indian economy and its challenges ahead.
However, he begins nicely picking from Ronald Coase’s one of the central insight:
