Vivek's Commentary

Global inequality Milanovic in his paper titled Global inequality: from class to location, from proletarians to migrants discusses the important points related to global inequality. In this article, I am going to discuss more on global inequality or inequality among countries by constructing inequality indicators. Let’s discuss.  The movement of capital across countries is important not only for individual countries but also for the global distribution of the capital. Theoretically, capital must be transferred from the rich country to the poor country as the marginal productivity of the capital must be higher in the poor countries but doesn’t happen. The capital transfers from rich countries to the poor countries are offset by the increase in the poor countries’ invest abroad (Lucas, R. E. (1990)). Broadly speaking, there is no global convergence of the income level. The poor countries are unable to catch up. The neoclassical suggests that the poor countries will grow faster th...

Thank you for giving me time sir.  Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: It is always a pleasure talking on the socio-eco-political issues.  Sir, I don’t want to ask you the questions related to the caste and reservation in this session. I want to know your views on the state, development strategy, property, and state institution.  Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Yes I will try to answer these questions. You know very well that I am a trained economist. I think I am not required to show my degree certificate, unlike others.  Yes, Dr. Ambedkar. Okay, let’s start. In this session, I will ask just two questions. In the next session, we will discuss more on caste and economies. So, my first question is that in the current situation, what role should state play for the welfare of the economy? Do you believe that the state should control all private property?  Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Vivek, see I am against the abolishment of the individual incentives for the welfare. There are many...

Recent state election results talk less about any wave and more about the framework of the Indian democracy. In the representative parliamentary democracy, seat numbers matter more. Therefore it becomes important to distribute vote share to maximize the winning seats. In Rajasthan, the winning party wins more seats by managing the vote shares. Graph no.1: Year wise difference between seat share and the vote share of parties winning seats in Rajasthan (Data sources: Election Commission of India) All small parties hold more vote share but fail to convert it into seats. That shows the importance of the small parties in regional parties. Managing the vote share of small share will definitely help the big state as well as national parties to win more seats. Graph no.2: Year wise difference between seat share and the vote share of BJP and Congress in Rajasthan (Data sources: Election Commission of India) Congress party managed the vote share well in 1...

Farmers are in Delhi, demanding special session for agricultural issues. To support their protest, I am trying to highlight the main issues through small articles.  Let's first discuss the main highlighted issue: APMC and Prices... The agricultural prices are always debated on every platform.  In 1960s several states passed the Agricultural Product Market Committee act. The main aim of this act was to provide an efficient marketing system and effective infrastructure for marketing of agricultural produce. All produce should be brought to the market yard first and be sold through auction so that farmer would get proper returns. Old APMC act didn’t allow any kind of private player to take part. There was no place for contract farming. But now APMCs act is amended and there is a provision for contract farming. According to the new act, private person, farmers can set up their own market.  However, there are still problems. Agents i.e. middle-men are taking the adva...

Statue of Unity will improve livelihood, promote job creation & tourism: PM Modi Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in his speech said that the tourist city will be developed and the jobs will be created by the statue of unity. But in India, neither monuments nor so-called tourist cities have created formal jobs. Most of the monuments are not even able to generate the revenue to overcome the expenditure.  Data sources - Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Culture Except for Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Group of monuments, Fatehpur Sikri, other monuments are struggling to generate the revenue. The revenue from Taj Mahaj is highest among all monuments. It was 21,84,88,950 Rs in 2013-14 i.e. around 21 Crore Rupees. For simplicity, let's assume that the statue of unity will generate 21 crore Rupees and so-called tourist cities will generate 41,73,16,987 Rs (It's a total expenditure on all World Heritage Monuments in India in 2013-14. I c...