- “For most projects I’ll never look at anything in ARCHIVES again. But of course it’s easy to do so if I want to. And the fact that it’s easy is important, because it means I don’t have nagging concerns about saying “this is finished with; let’s put it in ARCHIVES”, even if I think there’s some chance it might become active again.As it happens, this approach is somewhat inspired by something I saw done with physical documents. When I was consulting at Bell Labs in the early 1980s I saw that a friend of mine had two garbage cans in his office. When I asked him why, he explained that one was for genuine garbage and the other was a buffer into which he would throw documents that he thought he’d probably never want again. He’d let the buffer garbage can fill up, and once it was full, he’d throw away the lower documents in it, since from the fact that he hadn’t fished them out, he figured he’d probably never miss them if they were thrown away permanently.”
It is exhausting just reading it, but a very long article from Stephen Wolfram o how he organizes his life. You don’t have to go quite as all out – but you might learn a trick or two about organizing your life better by reading this article. God knows I need all the help I can get. - “Nonetheless, this work suggests a potentially serious problem. Many situations in economics are complicated and competitive. This raises the possibility that many important theories in economics may be wrong: If the key behavioral assumption of equilibrium is wrong, then the predictions of the model are likely wrong too. In this case new approaches are required that explicitly simulate the behavior of the players and take into account the fact that real people are not good at solving complicated problems.”
If I was to be (excessively?) cynical, I’d say this would mean that economists know nothing. But that isn’t necessarily true – Herbert Simon’s work on bounded rationality come to mind here. But the article is interesting about how to think about excessively complicated stuff – such as life. - “In a low-saving, low-investment economy like the US, it’s a little hard to conceive that its possible for savings and investment rates to be too high for a country’s economic health. But that’s where China has been, and shifting away from established patterns is rarely simple.”
To range across domains, there is this line from dietary studies that goes something like this: “It is the dose that makes the poison”. But if the USA suffers from too low a savings rate (maybe), China has the opposite problem. And this article does a great job of explaining the how and the why. - “Historically, interim budgets in India have consistently overestimated revenue growth and underestimated expenditure growth. An analysis of the projected, revised, and actual budget figures since 1991 by Deepa Vaidya and K. Kangasabapathy of the EPW Research Foundation showed that deviations from budget estimates tend to be extraordinarily high for budget estimates presented in interim budgets ”
This should surprise nobody, but budgets shouldn’t be trusted. Households budgets tend to have the same biases and errors that government budgets do, and for mostly the same reason – they’re drawn up by humans, who will be tempted to gloss over inconveniences. This article is full of interesting infographics that help you understand this point better – and also makes the point that an independent fiscal council is both necessary and overdue. I wouldn’t hold my breath. - “But as the global giants arrive, they have been driving up salaries, rents, and reputations. Now some fear that the multinationals that once nurtured this fledgling technology powerhouse are unwittingly damaging the potent but fragile mix of entrepreneurship, military training, and chutzpah that drew them to it in the first place. That, they worry, could prevent it from developing into a mature digital economy.”
Can you guess, before you click on the link, which country we’re talking about? Reading this article should make you want to read more about industrial organization, low interest rate environments, and urbanization – three of the biggest issues in economics today.
Tag: India
Links for 8th March, 2019
- “The canonical source for enforcement is Facebook’s public community guidelines — which consist of two sets of documents: the publicly posted ones, and the longer internal guidelines, which offer more granular detail on complex issues. These documents are further augmented by a 15,000-word secondary document, called “Known Questions,” which offers additional commentary and guidance on thorny questions of moderation — a kind of Talmud to the community guidelines’ Torah. Known Questions used to occupy a single lengthy document that moderators had to cross-reference daily; last year it was incorporated into the internal community guidelines for easier searching.A third major source of truth is the discussions moderators have among themselves. During breaking news events, such as a mass shooting, moderators will try to reach a consensus on whether a graphic image meets the criteria to be deleted or marked as disturbing. But sometimes they reach the wrong consensus, moderators said, and managers have to walk the floor explaining the correct decision.”
The Verge (Casey Newton, specifically), reporting on Facebook moderators – the human ones. This article is about the troubles they go through, and the costs they have to bear while doing so. A sobering read. - “Our international panel of judges — Pete Souza, Austin Mann, Annet de Graaf, Luísa Dörr, Chen Man, Phil Schiller, Kaiann Drance, Brooks Kraft, Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Jon McCormack and Arem Duplessis — gave some insight on why they loved these shots. ”
Worth it for at least two reasons – make that three. One, how skilled would you have to be, in the not too distant past, to take photographs as good as this? Two, the photographs themselves are quite breathtaking. Three, the commentary after each photograph helps you understand why those photographs are, in the opinion of the judges, so good. - “India has the potential to be the single largest democratic free market economy in the world. But it needs to simultaneously cut down on its corruption, create jobs for millions of new entrants to the labor economy every year, stand up a new generation of digital-first behemoths, all the while balancing the needs of an incredibly diverse and cacophonous democracy buffeted by global markets and tastes. That’s ultimately a tall order, but if India wants to migrate from a “billionaire raj” to an “entrepreneur raj,” it will have to do all of that — at once.”
The tech website TechCrunch, on India’s challenges in terms of becoming the next – not Silicon Valley – but China. If you want a more in-depth analysis of what is being spoken about here, I’d highly, highly recommend How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell. - “Econocrats and academic scholars need to take a hard look at the rising implications of intellectual property law, cooperative agreements and proprietary agglomerations of data in stifling competitive behaviour and mobility of new firms. Aggregating more information on firm-level growth narratives and better information dissemination (for researchers) will help analyse firm-level productivity impacts on market growth and overall industrial productivity levels over time.”
Somewhat related to what is linked to above, but also linked to a Twitter thread I linked to this past Saturday by Atif Mian. An interesting, if somewhat complicated read. - “The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal ordered that no lender can declare its exposure to embattled IL&FS Group as nonperforming without its permission – even if there is a default. The ruling by the bankruptcy court, which is overseeing the government-sponsored $12.8 billion insolvency of the infrastructure financier-operator, undermines the Reserve Bank of India’s powers to make banks and nonbank finance firms present a truthful account of their financial position at all times.”
This isn’t getting quite the coverage it should, but we’re putting a lot of stuff under what is very quickly becoming a very large blanket.
Links for 5th March, 2019
- “Using a neural network trained on widely available weather forecasts and historical turbine data, we configured the DeepMind system to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation. Based on these predictions, our model recommends how to make optimal hourly delivery commitments to the power grid a full day in advance. This is important, because energy sources that can be scheduled (i.e. can deliver a set amount of electricity at a set time) are often more valuable to the grid.”
The big problem with renewable energy is its utter unpredictability – which is why we will always struggle to move to a world that uses renewable energy as a primary source. Unless, of course, we figure out how to make great batteries. But in the meantime, anything that helps us predict the pattern of availability of wind and solar power is great news. - “Still, people do break Google’s protection. CAPTCHAs are an ongoing arms race that neither side will ever win. The AI technology which makes Google’s approach so hard to fool is the same technology that is adapted to fool it.Just wait until that AI is convincing enough to fool you.
Sweet dreams, human.”
Ever clicked on the “I’m a human” button and wondered why it seemed like such a stupid idea. Well, uh, not stupid. Not stupid at all. - “This further tells us that people are buying and selling homes. It’s just that the builders are not a part of this transaction.”
This is a very short excerpt, but especially for Indians, this article is well worth reading (and Vivek Kaul is well worth following!). Home loans are going up every year, but unsold inventory is also going up every year? What gives? - “All of economics is meant to be about people’s behavior. So, what is behavioral economics, and how does it differ from the rest of economics?”
An essay about behavioral economics and its many applications, written by two people who are more familiar with the field than almost anybody else. There isn’t much here for people who are already familiar with the field – but if you are new to behavioral economics, this is an excellent introduction. - “Two landmark events helped pushed along the proliferation of Sichuan cuisine in New York. In 2005, the peppercorn ban was lifted, though imported peppercorns still had to be heat treated and were thus less potent than they might have been. (This restriction was finally lifted in 2018.) ”
I was in New York in 2007, and knew nothing of how to try new food, and it is a major source of regret. Especially when I read articles like these.
Links for 4th March, 2019
- “Under Uma, the NRCB has built Asia’s largest gene bank of 360 banana varieties. The popularity of Grand Nain—the long, pale yellow bananas that one encounters in most supermarket shelves (promoted by the giant Swiss horticultural conglomerate, Chiquita)—is such that it has been pulping production of more nutritious native bananas. Monoculture, or large-scale cropping of one strain without diversity, makes the crop susceptible to deadly disease attacks that could wipe out its production. There’s also the added risk of permanently losing indigenous varieties. This is one of the many threats Trichy’s famed banana growers face. The perennial scarcity of water has also meant that Tamil Nadu’s Theni district toppled Trichy from its top banana status. ”
Only one excerpt from a very long article about the Cauvery -and this long article is only part deux of a two part series. There was much to learn from reading it, about a whole variety of issues. Recommended. - “Economic historian Barry Eichengreen has shown how countries that have experienced rapid economic growth during their escape from the clutches of mass poverty tend to falter in their subsequent move to mass prosperity. His research suggests that the most common point when inertia sets in, is when average incomes are either around $11,000 or $15,000 a year. This is the famous middle income trap. Fewer countries emerge from it than enter it.”
Recommended for a variety of reasons – a good way to learn about the middle income trap, about China’s slowdown, about India’s opportunities, and about the implied risks for both China and India. Niranjan Rajadhakshya on China’s slowdown. - “Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s policy adviser, Dan Riffle, contends that “every billionaire is a policy failure” (that’s the tagline on his Twitter handle) because “the acquisition of that much wealth has bad consequences” and “a moral society needs guardrails against it.” He’d like to see the 2020 Democratic primary contenders answer a question: Can it be morally appropriate for anyone to be a billionaire? ”
Or, put another way, is the world a zero sum game or a non-zero sum game? This blog is unapologetically in the latter camp. Economics, in fact, is defined by being a non-zero sum game. - ““I’ve been very cautious about saying that until we got these results, but now I’m not so sure,” he said. “I think that a striped T-shirt might work very nicely.””
The most fun way you will ever learn about evolution. Well, maybe not the most fun way, but you’ll enjoy reading this for sure. - “As the process of Brexit unfolds, we are discovering how many pleasant aspects of modern life in Britain are closely linked to EU membership. A good relationship between Britain and Ireland should be added to that list.”
Gideon Rachman on how Brexit might (make that will) affect relationships between Britain and Ireland.
Links for 28th February, 2019
- “India holds the dubious distinction of having the worst non-performing loan ratio among the world’s major economies, having surpassed Italy. The Reserve Bank of India said in December that the ratio for banks fell for the first time since 2015, though it’s still “high for comfort.” A $190 billion pile of soured and stressed debt has cast the future of some lenders in doubt and curbed investments.”
There actually isn’t that much more to read at the link, but the chart is instructive. Also bear in mind that it is quite unlikely that the data is accurate – this is not a criticism of the IMF, but rather of the banking system itself in both Italy and India. - ““Let there be no misconceptions about who protects [JeM]. Pakistan is small potatoes . . . True global power shielding Jaish is China. As death toll rises today, let nobody forget how China has consistently blocked action against Jaish,” tweeted Shiv Aroor, a television reporter specialising in military and strategic affairs.”
China’s blocking of India’s move to have Masood Azhar declared a terrorist has been an issue that hasn’t recieved as much attention, both within and outside India, as it should have. But the reason reading this article makes sense is because it’s a good way to think about how China’s bargaining position as regards this issue is slightly weaker now, given it’s trade wars with the USA. - “All it takes is a half-hour at this intersection in Lagos, the sprawling metropolis in Nigeria, to begin fearing this city. White oil tankers crawl along both on and beneath an overpass on the multilane Apapa Road, making their way out of the Niger River delta. Zipping around them are black-and-yellow rickshaws and minibuses, with sweaty passengers clinging to the doors. Every few meters, a truck hits the brakes with an ear-splitting shriek, the clouds of exhaust mixing with the diesel fumes of the generators. The foul air hangs like a thick blanket over the corrugated metal slums to the right and left of the street. Just 30 minutes at this intersection is enough to make you want to flee this city — a megalopolis that is growing faster than almost any other place on earth.”
Who can predict the future? Short answer: don’t bother trying. One thing that makes economics so endlessly interesting is reading conflicting views – if you recall the article on The Empty Planet the other day, this one is in direct contradiction – at least in terms of the theme, if not the data itself. Der Spiegel reviews three different countries and the challenges they are facing, and will face, on account of population growth. - “Nobody is expecting the prince to do anything about Pakistan and India being on the brink of a war yet again. Like all little princes he does not have to pick sides or make a choice. When he visits India this week, he is expected to sign more investment deals. The Pakistani government calls his visit historic, and Indian officials call it historic. But only people with no sense of history call every passing chariot a historic event. The prince is playing with Pakistan and India because he is being temporarily snubbed by the boys and girls of the West, the ones he really wanted to play with.”
Mohammed Hanif is dismissive of the storm in the teacup that is Prince Mohammed’s visit to India and Pakistan. Sometimes, having that perspective helps contextualize the visit, and it’s inevitability. Think from a game theoretic perspective: what choices did Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India (and China have)? - “If these behaviors add up to consciousness, it means one of two things: Either consciousness evolved twice, at least, across the long course of evolutionary history, or it evolved sometime before birds and mammals went on their separate evolutionary journeys. Both scenarios would give us reason to believe that nature can knit molecules into waking minds more easily than previously guessed. This would mean that all across the planet, animals large and small are constantly generating vivid experiences that bear some relationship to our own.”
The Atlantic explores a veterinary hospital in Delhi, Jainism, birds (crows in particular), fish, consciousness and a temple in Gujarat – all in one glorious article. Worth it in particular for the theme of consciousness – but much else besides as well!
Links for 27th February, 2019
- “The time for masking such equity-type investments as loans has passed. Real estate in India is facing a glut, with $110 billion worth of unsold homes across the top eight markets, including Mumbai. That’s almost four years of sales, according to property analytics firm Liases Foras. Back in 2009, when apartment inventory was equal to about one year of sales, only 25 percent of construction funding came from shadow financiers. Banks controlled 75 percent.The tables have now turned: Housing-finance firms and other nonbank lenders, more adventurous than conventional banks, account for 55 percent of advances to builders. Lenders pocketing 2 percent to 3 percent of the loan value as upfront fees in exchange for not collecting on the principal for years has allowed a buildup of poor-quality debt. Moratoriums have delayed builder bankruptcies, and prevented timely detection of the problem.”
This is a problem just waiting to become a full blown crisis in India – not the real estate sector per se, but the financing of the real estate sector in India. Read this article to find out how and why it has become as big a problem as it has. - “Like all great work, it was the foundation for other huge contributions – work by other great economists such as Oliver Hart, Bengt Holmstrom, Paul Milgrom and many others can easily be traced to this paper. The paper’s starting point – that coordination within firms is not accomplished ‘by fiat’ (Demsetz famously remarks “This is delusion”), and that one should instead examine how incentive structures within firms create efficiencies relative to other forms of organisation – became the starting point for nearly the entire field of the economics of organisation ever since.”
I have linked to this piece earlier, I think in January. But since I am currently teaching a course in Industrial Organization at Gokhale Institute, I found myself reading this piece all over again. Demsetz really was a giant in this field – and his analysis of why firms exist, and how they coordinate and incentivize activity within the firm is truly illuminating. - “So, the UN forecasting model inputs three things: fertility rates, migration rates, and death rates. It doesn’t take into account the expansion of education for females or the speed of urbanization (which are in some ways linked). The UN says they’re already baked into the numbers. But when I went and interviewed [the demographer] Wolfgang Lutz in Vienna, which was one of the first things we did, he walked me through his projections, and I walked out of the room gobsmacked. All he was doing was adding one new variable to the forecast: the level of improvement in female education. And he comes up with a much lower number for global population in 2100, somewhere between 8 billion and 9 billion.”
Population “crises” are over-rated in any case (people are a resource!) – but even the forecasts for how many people there will be on the planet in the next thirty to eighty years are likely to be wrong. The world is changing right in front of our eyes. The problem of the (near) future isn’t one of too many people – it’s one of too few. - “Instead, the signatories objected to the election of a student union president of Tibetan descent, who “was found to hold the political belief that Tibet should be free”.”
Based on what you have read above, which country are we talking about? Not only might the answer surprise you, but it will also help you think about geopolitics, international finance and the benefits of diversification. - “Most developed countries of today addressed many of their basic plumbing challenges largely through public production. China is clearly an example of the latter. It appears to have perfected the use of industrial policy to co-ordinate private enterprise even into some of the most difficult areas for private engagement. This is the case of industrial policy to both address a critical plumbing issue as well as catalysing a market. And this is what makes its achievement exceptional.”
Law, innovation, state led industrial policy and judicial pendency, all in one lovely article by Gulzar Natarajan. Gokhale Institute recently released a report on judicial pendency in India – China has an interesting way of tackling this problem.
Links for 22nd February, 2019
- “We seem somehow bored with thinking. We want to instantly know. There’s this epidemic of listicles. Why think about what constitutes a great work of art when you can skim “The 20 Most Expensive Paintings in History?”I’m very guided by this desire to counter that in myself because I am, like everybody else, a product of my time and my culture. I remember, there’s a really beautiful commencement address that Adrienne Rich gave in 1977 in which she said that an education is not something that you get but something that you claim.
I think that’s very much true of knowledge itself. The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of claiming it.”
Have you heard of Maria Popova? This interview helps you understand who she is, and her importance in combating what I linked to a couple of days ago – David Perell’s article about the Never Ending Now. - “Thanks to government backing, the state-owned company building the bridge is unlikely to default or go bankrupt. But bridges like Chishi leave local governments and developers struggling with debt, and those who live below nonplused.“If you don’t build roads, there can’t be prosperity,” said Huang Sanliang, a 56-year-old farmer who lives under the bridge. “But this is an expressway, not a second- or third-grade road. One of those might be better for us here.””
The New York Times on bridges in China – and how there might be one too many of them. Economists have worried for many years now about how China’s economy will slowdown in the years to come, and also about how China’s economy has masked it’s imminent slowdown by building bridges, roads and entire cities when the immediate need is not apparent. - “Turns out the reason was likely the same as the one behind every one of my life choices: it involved the least effort. As Frankie Huang, a writer and strategist based in Shanghai, told me over email, numbers are far easier to type for purposes like websites’ names, as compared to pinyin, the Romanised system for Chinese characters.”
…speaking of China, Mithila Phadka explains why the Chinese prefer using numbers evreywhere possible – even preferring to use numbers rather than text for URL’s. 12306.cn is preferred to ChinaRail.com, for example. - “In Study the Great Nation, you can catch up on the latest state media reports on Mr. Xi’s decisions, savor a quote of the day from Mr. Xi or brush up on “Xi Jinping Thought.” You can quiz yourself on Mr. Xi’s policies and pronouncements, or take in a television show called “Xi Time,” which is … well, you get the picture.Doing each of these activities can reward users with “study points,” which can be redeemed for gifts in future versions of the app.”
I worry that China won’t be the only country doing this for very long – far too many leaders in far too many countries are likely to be tempted to be, um, inspired. - “This conclusion, if it withstands open-minded analysis in India, does not mean that India lacks ways to punish Pakistan and motivate it to demobilize groups that threaten to perpetrate terrorism in India. Rather, it suggests that more symmetrical and covert operations would yield a better ratio of risk to effectiveness for India. There are many ways to make Pakistani military leaders conclude that the cohesion, security, and progress of their own country will be further jeopardized if they fail to act vigorously to prevent terrorism against India. Limited, precision air strikes are not India’s best option now or for the foreseeable future.”
This is from 2015 – but as of that point, this rather well researched article points out that India may not be able to carry out precision air strikes against Pakistan – because of the threat of escalation, because of the technology available with Pakistan today, and because other ground based options may be more operationally feasible.
Links for 18th February, 2019
- “That’s a tenet of progressivism: that progress is inevitable. So if you get something designated as progress, then your party, which was responsible for it, will get the credit for it, will always get to attack the other party for opposing it, and will find a continual source of votes in future elections by defending it. And that assumes that people will passively accept this narrowing of the range of political controversy and enjoy the individual relationship that each person has with this huge government that sends checks in the mail.”
A rather old interview (from 2012), but the article I linked to yesterday about dole outs in India induced some additional research that helped me land up on this article – and it makes some interesting points, none of which is more interesting than the one quoted above. - “The case of these surviving princes in our socialist republic is, in some ways, reflective of the countless ironies that make up Indian democracy. India remains, in many ways, a marriage of awkward histories and feudal legacies with the idealism of liberal thought and constitutional values. They do not sit easily with each other always, and sometimes jostle with force to make their presence felt. And yet the enterprise moves forward, one way or another: which perhaps explains why, even as we celebrate a Dalit president, newspapers descend into a frenzy at the advent of babies to freshly adopted maharajas; how even as a “chaiwallah” rises against the odds to become prime minister, there are princes and rajas to whom his government still owes a royal pension.”
Manu S. Pillai on the wonder that is India today – its many contradictions and confusions. This one happens to be about how we still pay out pensions to princes and zamorins. - “In short, what happened since September 2018 was the trifecta of trade tariffs, inadequate fiscal firepower from the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and a consistently hawkish PBOC. The 10% tariff on $250 billion of Chinese exports weakened domestic demand more than fiscal support was able to offset, which was reflected in both slower growth and lower inflation. And as inflation fell, the PBOC chose not to adjust the nominal interest rate, so the real interest rate effectively rose as a result. This confluence of factors put significant downward pressure on economic growth.”
The article contains some forecasts as well – make what you will of them. But the analysis of why China did not use either fiscal or monetary tools is worth reading. - “One story I’ve found myself revisiting over and over again is Asimov’s ‘Franchise,’ published as a short story in the August 1955 edition of If magazine. In it, a future America (2008), decides to reduce voting to a statistical model that extrapolates the outcomes of all elections based on a set of questions answered by one, extremely representative person.”
The Verge has put together a list of books you might want to read to understand AI better. I am delighted to say that I haven’t read a single one of these, and therefore have a lot of reading to do. - “The supporters are known as ‘Umans’ and control the team using the free United Managers’ app – a start-up which began working with the club in 2017.Before the game Umans can decide on the starting line-up, substitutes, the formation, set-pieces and communicate with staff and players.They vote using coins that they receive by using the app, or they can purchase a premium subscription. The more a Uman plays the game, the more weight their vote is worth.”
What a fascinating experiment. A football club that is run, on the fly, by the fans. With the advent of technology, what else might be run this way in the future? With what consequences?
Links for 7th February, 2019
- “Using a series of network theory algorithms, Jen and Freire found that China’s influence on the world is now as sizable as the combined influence of the US and EU. The shift occurred following the financial crisis in 2008, which saw the US’s impact on average global GDP shrink from just over 40 per cent between 1989-98 to half that between 2009-18”
FT Alphaville reports on analysis that shows just how big, and therefore important, China is in the global economy. Even more importantly, not all parts of the world will be equally affected by the Chinese slowdown/recession. Europe, it turns out, will likely be the worst hit. - ““It would be kind of boring if everything was the same,” she said through a thicket of pink and green strobe lights at the bar, which sits in an upper-level parking lot. “That’s why this place is so valuable to people like us.””
My apologies for the double-double quotes, but that excerpt encapsulates for me the dilemma underlying Singapore’s very existence. I loved the ten days or so I spent there, but maybe, just maybe, Singapore is too perfect? On the other hand, what a nice problem to have. - “We became free of colonial rule in August 1947; and adopted a republican Constitution in January 1950. Seven decades later, we may be more democratic than when the British left these shores. But we are certainly less democratic than what the framers of our Constitution hoped us to be. Indeed, the faultlines I have identified here have persisted regardless of who is in power, at the Centre or in the states. They need to be addressed, and remedied, if we are to be more worthy of the ideals bequeathed us by the founders of our Republic.”
Religious division, social inequality, environmental degradation and the degradation of public institutions are the faultlines that Ramchandra Guha speaks of – an article worth pondering upon. - “All of this used to be obvious enough, but in the age of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez it has to be explained all over again. Why does socialism never work? Because, as Margaret Thatcher explained, “eventually you run out of other people’s money.””
Bret Stephens from the NYT lays out the reasons why socialism tends to not work – ever. - “It seems clear that more people are receiving income and tax from activities that are outside traditional jobs. But other than ride-sharing jobs, just how to characterize these jobs remains murky, and the question of what rules and regulations might apply to such income-earning activities remains murky, too.”
Care to guess which country we’re talking about before you click on this link?
Links for 5th February, 2019
- “If there is one number that can make the edifice of budgetary arithmetic collapse and impair the growth prospects, it is the movement of crude oil prices. If for nothing else, but simply reduce the vulnerability of the fisc, this should be done. For, it is the “resource deficit” of the country which is the single biggest threat to sustained growth of 9%”
How might a new age budget look like? Haseeb Drabu takes a look at the ways – five of them. You’ll be reading this by the time the budget has come out, of course, but it still makes sense to read this in order to think about how the budget needs to be structured. - “The 0.9 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in the adjusted net profit of 385 companies, which have released their results for the third quarter (Q3) of the current financial year so far, does not inspire much confidence. If financials and energy companies are removed from the sample, net profit has grown 6.4 per cent in Q3 — the worst performance in five quarters.”
I’d recommend that you read this article to either get a sense of how to judge the macroeconomic environment (partially!) on the basis of stock market performance, or even better, if you are new to finance, read this with an Investopedia tab open alongside. - “Passenger vehicle sales in China fell for the first time last year since the early 1990s due to a cut to government tax breaks and wider economic sluggishness. Hyundai, which was once the third-largest automaker in China together with Kia, is now sorting out overcapacity as its sales in China have not picked up much since being hit by the anti-Korean consumer backlash in 2017.”
The FT provides additional information on the slowdown in China – and the link on the anti-Korean backlash is also worth reading. - “From the start of 2012 to the end of 2016, China produced nearly three times as much cement as the US did in the entire 20th century.Much of that investment has gone to waste. A recent study by China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics estimates that more than one in five Chinese homes in urban areas, or about 65m apartments, are empty. And if demography is destiny, China’s prospects are bleak. Between 1980 and 2012, China added about 380m people to its working-age population. But that number has been shrinking for the past five years and is expected to fall by a third, or about 220m people, in the next three decades.”
More grist to the China recession mill, from the FT. The numbers are truly breathtaking – especially that quote about cement! - “China’s fertility rate has officially fallen to 1.6 children per woman, but even that number is disputed. Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written that China’s government has obscured the actual fertility rate to disguise the disastrous ramifications of the “one child” policy. According to his calculations, the fertility rate averaged 1.18 between 2010 and 2018.”
The NYT picks up from where the FT left off, and tells us about the impending population crisis in China – that there may soon be too few people in China, not too many.
EconForEverybody 