The Indian Economy Blog

This has been something significant on the economic and trade diplomacy front that has largely gone unnoticed. But for a few mandarins in the Indian commerce and foreign ministries and some officials in the CII headquarters, the story has remained under wraps. It started around three years back and it is about India and West [...]

Contemplating a ban on iron-ore exports is absurd

The bulk of India’s iron-ore exports last year went to China. This is being bandied as something sinister by those who dislike China because of geopolitical reasons and by those who dislike selling ‘our’ ore to ‘them’ instead of letting ‘our’ manufacturers have it.

1. So why do Indian [...]

Ajay Shah alerts us to a draft volume published by the World Bank (free download) titled Dancing with Giants: China, India and the global economy.
Drawing upon the latest research, this volume analyzes the influences on the rapid future development of these two countries and examines how their growth is likely to impinge upon other countries. [...]

India and China, combined have 2.3 billion people. And it sometimes feel as if there’s almost as many write-ups comparing these two countries. The latest to join the fray is Deloitte and Touche’s The Reality Beyond The Hype.
Hat tip: The Private Sector Development Blog, from the World Bank.
Hope you [...]

The World Bank recently hosted the Private Sector Development Forum in Washington D.C. with the broad theme, “Markets and Growth: What, Where, When, and How?” Given the flavour of the month/year/decade, the PSDForum also hosted a panel on China and India. Pablo Halkyard at the PSD Blog links to the presentations made by Prof Yasheng [...]

Two news incidents caught my eye that had a similar vein of job market conditions running through them. One, read about young American workers conducting part of their work-life in Bangalore in Americans seek opportunity in booming Bangalore. Two, labor shortage in China enables an increase in working conditions and benefits as portrayed in Labor [...]

Japan fell through the cracks. Relations with Taiwan, in comparison, remain in India’s diplomatic blind spot. Though its wisdom is debatable, there is an argument against pursuing closer open political relations with Taiwan for fear of offending China. There is no reason, however, for neglecting greater economic intercourse with Taiwan, one of Asia’s top economies. [...]

Yasheng Huang of MIT and Tarun Khanna of Harvard created quite a stir back in 2003 when they suggested in a widely discussed Foreign Policy article that India’s chaotic development model may actually outstrip China’s in the long run. Yasheng Huang is back with an op-ed in the Financial Times in which he points to [...]

The US-based Conference Board has a new report out on global productivity (hat tip to New Economist). The core message of the report is the following:
“Most countries in the developed world (North America, Europe and developed Asia) experienced a slowdown in productivity growth rates in 2005…Countries at the higher end of the global productivity spectrum [...]

The latest columnist to join the India Vs China debate is Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. The column itself is mind-numbingly boring, except possibly to readers who are only just waking up to the India/China story. Nonetheless, Kristof is one of 2-3 of the most influential columnists at the Times and that is [...]