Praxeology: My Reflexions on India

US based bond credit rating agency Moody’s upgraded Indian government’s bond rating from Baa3 to Baa2. This is one level up from their lowest rating grade. They have changed their outlook of the Indian economy from positive to stable with this upgrade. Modi government ministers and its supporters are terming this upgrade as an endorsement of their policies of demonetization and GST for which they are under intense backlash and criticism of late. One thing that I vividly remember about Moody’s is that this is the same credit rating agency which failed miserably in seeing the sub-prime credit crisis coming in 2007. Just before the sub-prime bubble busted in 2007, this agency was rating the toxic mortgage backed securities (MBS) with their highest rating level of AAA! After the crisis this rating came down to their lowest level of junk ! Does this upgrade matter so much? The fundamental theory behind this bond rating upgrade is the flawed Keynesian idea of ‘borrowing...

The capital of India New Delhi is once again engulfed in toxic smog. The usual blame games by politicians have begun about the cause of this pollution. The Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is blaming the burning of crops in the adjacent states of Haryana and Punjab for this pollution. Other major causes cited by authorities and activists are vehicle exhaust and dust and industrial emissions . Delhi government has tried every measure like spraying water or the famous odd-even scheme for vehicles etc., that it had in its policy portfolio to combat this pollution but failed. Now the authorities are hoping for rains to come and naturally clean this pollution! Most people discussing this issue are of opinion that only government can tackle this problem of (air) pollution. But is it so? The usual problem with such opinions is that they ignore the alternatives available. For example, in the field of environmental sciences there is a school of thought known as free market ...

GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History by Diane Coyle (Revised and Updated Edition 2014, Princeton University Press, pp. 167 ) Diane Coyle’s little book GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History tells a very mainstream history of the statistics of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in brief 145 pages. The book is divided into six chapters not including the introduction. The introduction discusses what GDP actually means. Coyle throws light on this often confused statistic: GDP is the way we measure and compare how well or badly countries are doing. But this is not a question of measuring a natural phenomenon like land mass or average temperature to varying degrees of accuracy. GDP is a made-up entity. The concept dates back only to the 1940s. As Coyle clearly states, when looking at GDP numbers published by the newspapers, journal articles or uttered by the politicians from their bully pulpit in election rallies, we must keep this fact in mind that GDP is purely a made-up ...