Finance and Crisis – NICKELED AND DIMED

Your Destination is on the Left

Electing a left-wing candidate for the first time in over two hundred years, the recently concluded presidential election in Columbia which saw former guerrilla member and mayor of Bogota, Gustavo Petro, emerge victorious is a monumental moment. Riding on anti-incumbency sentiments against the traditional centre-right parties, Petro has some radical reforms such as agricultural tariffs, free education, a higher tax on the rich, and paving the path for an economy based on greener energy. Yet, without a parliamentary majority, there are doubts whether Petro will be able to deliver on his promises. With the Latin American country turning a historic page, this article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the implications it bears on Colombia and its future.
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Can Game Theory Help Understand Human Behavior in Times of Crisis?

Human behaviour often follows a pattern – there is an event, then a reaction, and then further reactions, few of them original, many of them borrowed. It is usually the most negative events – like crises, that evoke the most powerful reactions from people, surely replicated by others in some form or other. But what if we had an existing framework that mapped out how predictably we react?
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Inefficient Fiscal Management, Extreme Populism and Increasing Dictatorial Powers: The Making of the Sri Lankan Economic Crisis

Given the problem of ‘twin deficit’– a budget shortfall as well as a current account deficit – it is natural to ponder how a country that consistently performed better than its neighbors in terms of various social indicators dug itself deep into this bottomless hole?
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No Digital Currency for Digital India?

What is all the fuss about the government’s attempt to ban cryptocurrencies? What shall be the implications if the government is successful in doing so? Does it mean that India will be a devoid of a digital currency while the rest of the world adapts itself to all technological developments? Let’s see.
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Are the new Farm Bills Exploitative?

This article will analyze the Farm Bills 2020, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Bypass Bill, and Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill. This article seeks to identify if the farm bills are a boon or the bane for the economy.
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Lakshmi Vilas Bank: from Failed Mergers to DBS

Yet another bank is in trouble after PMC Bank and Yes Bank in the span of just two years. The question is what is common in these crises and how is the RBI responding?
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The Monetisation Trap

This article explores debt management through monetisation of debts, theoretical causation of inflationary pressures as a consequence of growing fiscal deficits and how fiscal deficit affects the interaction of fiscal-monetary policies?
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Broken Markets – Reflection from the labour landscape (Part II)

In this article, the author discusses the trend in budgetary allocations to schemes such as MNREGA to bring out the stark reality through the data analyzed in the July Issue of Infosphere.
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India’s Debt Challenge

The important question that one is looking to analyse is whether the targets set under the FRBM Act were met. Authors Diya and Aliva provide a brief on India’s journey with tackling high fiscal deficits.
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Pandemic and slumped oil prices: context and impact on migrant workers

This article discusses how migrant workers in petrostates are impacted by fiscal policies in the light of pandemic and low oil prices.
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The Economics of Isolation (Part 1): Thinking like a consumeR

In the first part of a two-part series discussing the economic impacts of self-isolation and quarantines across the globe, Advaita Singh explores the changes in consumer behaviour due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Read more: The Economics of Isolation (Part 1): Thinking like a consumeR
BROKEN MARKETS: REFLECTIONS FROM INDIA’S LABOUR LANDSCAPE

Divyansh Singh provides a narrative to support the data in the Infosphere Issue on India’s labour markets.
Read more: BROKEN MARKETS: REFLECTIONS FROM INDIA’S LABOUR LANDSCAPE