Cafe economics

This column usually drifts away from its usual concerns at the end of every year, to cover some broader issues that get crowded out by the news cycle. (Photo: istockphoto)

Why do we work? This question arises again as AI eyes our jobs

4 min read . 26 Dec 2023

MS Swaminathan played a central role in the transition of our country from begging bowl to bread basket.

Lessons of the Green Revolution could aid our climate transition

4 min read . 03 Oct 2023

It makes a difference whether new investments are expanding factory lines for cars run on internal combustion engines or creating an electric vehicles industry from scratch.

Will our new investment cycle be Keynesian or Schumpeterian?

4 min read . 09 Aug 2023

The green transition will involve aiming investments at new areas and a combination of subsidies and a carbon tax to incentivize technology adoption—actions for both the state and market to take.

Oppenheimer’s project should inspire climate action urgenc

4 min read . 26 Jul 2023

In a recent paper, Bibek Debroy and Devi Prasad Misra used goods and services tax (GST) data to show that inter-state trade cumulatively grew more than 14 percentage points faster than the underlying economy between fiscal years 2017-18 and 2020-21 (MINT_PRINT)

New data tools can help analyse pixel-level economic dynamics

4 min read . 12 Jul 2023

Adam Smith was born in the tiny Scottish town of Kircaldy around 300 years ago. (Photo: iStockphoto)

Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ has valuable lessons for eternity

4 min read . 31 May 2023

Let’s move from rear-view to the windshield on wage data

3 min read . 17 May 2023

Tax trends suggest India may be close to a fiscal inflection point

4 min read . 19 Apr 2023

Photo: Bloomberg

India’s post-pandemic potential growth could be pushed higher

4 min read . 06 Apr 2023

Photo: Bloomberg

Do not let increasing heatwaves sap worker productivity in India

4 min read . 22 Mar 2023

January’s inflation data served us a reminder of RBI’s challenge

4 min read . 22 Feb 2023

India must reduce its public debt ratio to build economic resilience

4 min read . 08 Feb 2023

The budget must balance growth and public debt

5 min read . 25 Jan 2023

India will face especially complex policy challenges next fiscal year

4 min read . 11 Jan 2023

Adam Smith placed the key to human progress not in the hands of kings, queens and aristocrats, but ordinary folk. Photo: iStock

The broad mission of economics mustn’t get lost in daily routines

5 min read . 28 Dec 2022

RBI has chosen two very different designs for the two variants of the new digital rupee. Photo: iStock

The e-rupee will yield demand-side learnings

4 min read . 14 Dec 2022

The political colour of the protests is important for the future of China's economy too. Photo: AFP

China’s economy is undergoing a profound structural slowdown

4 min read . 30 Nov 2022

The tricky bit for the MPC is to figure out whether it wants to use the interest rate solely to target inflation. Photo: Mint

Why the MPC should slow its pace of tightening

4 min read . 16 Nov 2022

An inflation surge generally tends to push up inflation expectations over the short term. Photo: Bloomberg

Why inflation usually retreats at a far slower pace than it goes up

4 min read . 02 Nov 2022

The exchange rate will soon have to play a bigger adjustment role

4 min read . 19 Oct 2022