Category: Economic History
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PhD project
PhD Project Title: Capitalism and Globalisation: Do social ties matter? Research Focus Focused on exploring the long-term trends in capitalism and entrepreneurship, my research studies the interactions between globalisation and the social ties binding Indian businesses during the years 1857-1970. Research Interests Economic history, business history and social science history. The relationship between capitalism, globalisation […]
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A rich brew
This perhaps is the most powerful conversation starter, pretty much capable of spawning new cultures, or catalysing capitalism, liberalism or what have you.
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Protected: #3 Pandemic of Inequality Won’t Let Us Breathe
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Can Atlas Cycles make a comeback?
I wrote this for @moneycontrolcom and the inspiration came from my brother. More than a decade after he left high school, he invested in a bicycle. This reminded me of our favourite wheels as children — Atlas cycles. COVID-19 and the restrictions it imposed had clearly tested the patience of thousands like him who had […]
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QUB Podcast
QUB Belfast has a postgraduate podcast now and the first issue is already out. Do check out Student Voices without any further delay. This looks very promising and I am biased for obvious reasons. 🙂 Follow them on Twitter as well.
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Will equal inheritance rights widen gender inequality?
I explore this in my op-ed this week for Moneycontrol.
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Oral History Interview for SAADA
Such a lovely interview by Gaiutra Bahadur (whose Coolie woman is one of my favorite books based on the life of the subaltern) of her aunt Kokila Bahadur for SAADA, who arrived in America when she was in her late 20s as a nurse trainee at a local hospital. Today, she is 81 and in […]
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Mercantile capitalism in a polycentric world
Interesting new paper on the evolution of Indian capitalism that challenges the age-old trope of exceptionalism of the West and Asia’s fall. A little brief on the paper and full download can be found here,
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Ruth Alice Allen
‘East Texas Lumber Workers’ (1961) is yet another pioneering work of Allen focusing on the economic conditions of the Texan lumber country, in which Allen viewed people’s physical, social and economic environments as the most important influence on their behaviour. Besides these, Allen worked on a range of collections and monographs on the labour history […]
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Book alert!
Dr John Turner and Dr Will Quinn of Queen’s University Belfast have written a brilliant new book titled ‘Boom and Bust‘, which is a fascinating account of the ten bubbles in history occurring in the 19th century Australia to modern China. In the words of the The Enlightened Economist: Each episode is set in the […]
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Pandemics and Inequality
Economic Historian Guido Alfani, who studies long run trends in inequality, posted a series of tweets on pandemics and inequality this week. To sum up: Some pandemics in history helped reduce inequality, but it would be wrong to say that all pandemics reduce inequality. 2. Some pandemics may not have macro impact but can still […]
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Joan Robinson
‘[M]y brain is quite congealed. I cannot think of a word to say to anyone.’ In India of the 1920s, a socially awkward young woman said this of her experience at the parties in Gwalior, India. In less than a decade, she joined Cambridge and became one of the foremost economic thinkers of our time. […]
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Pandemic of Inequality Won’t Let Us Breathe
The world we live in is getting scarier as disturbing events unfold. Floyd’s gruesome killing has sparked fierce reactions globally and we are now left tracing its roots to the long-standing racial prejudices that have existed alongside decades of material prosperity. We know this could be traced to British colonialism in the Americas and the […]
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Are Firms Too Risk-Averse?
Interesting research on firms and their capacity to take risks. While firms may be risk averse, employees can be evaluated on what they can control and not on what they can not control. This and more useful points here. https://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/06/are-firms-too-risk-averse.html
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The Understanding Money Mechanics
mises.org/library/understanding-money-mechanics-0 I am a big sucker for economists explaining things, and an over sharer of all such knowledge made public. After Arjun Jayadev and Franko Milanovic’s free online video lecture series on Inequality, here is another one worth your time (link above) – The Understanding Money Mechanics series – by Robert P. Murphy. This is all going […]
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Share from Mostlyeconomics: Three development paradigms of Indian economy
Vijay Kelkar Convocation Address at BHU: Three development paradigms of Indian economy https://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/vijay-kelkar-convocation-address-at-bhu-three-development-paradigms-of-indian-economy/ — Read on mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/vijay-kelkar-convocation-address-at-bhu-three-development-paradigms-of-indian-economy/
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Link between education and the industrial revolution – Sharing Amol Agarwal’s post
Did education play a role in England’s industrial revolution? https://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/did-education-play-a-role-in-englands-industrial-revolution/ — Read on mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/did-education-play-a-role-in-englands-industrial-revolution/
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Budget 2020: Past matters but future is raged over
Yeah so, even as Budget 2020 is waiting to be ripped apart mostly for what it’s projections for the year ahead are, I am worried how little we care about the past when it comes to the budget. Hey, what exactly is budget anyway? Just a simple record of what the government earned and spent […]
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Rare video of John Maynard Keynes
Here is a rare archival footage of Kenyes speaking on the gold standard. Savour.
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Video lecture series on Inequality
Economics professors Arjun Jayadev and Branko Milanovic have collaborated on a video lecture series on Inequality – the five vidoes, free to watch, clearly and succinctly explain what Inequality is all about, why you should care and other fundamentals you have been wondering about for long. It’s cut-the-clutter stuff that you shouldn’t miss. Watch here: […]
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Happy birthday to Dietmar Rothermund!
For a budding economic historian, reading Dietmar Rothermund’s work on India can be an illuminating experience, given that apart from the works of Indian scholars on Indian economic history, Rothermund’s books provide a refreshing view of history. But what can be really special about this veteran historian is his extremely warm demeanour even to those […]
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Can humans always be maximising their interests?
Gratitude, Kindness, Loveliness https://www.econlib.org/Gratitude_Kindness_Loveliness
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Why are Men Detaching from the Labor Force? http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-are-men-detaching-from-labor-force.html
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surgeons and sex
How Medieval Surgeons Shaped Sex and Gender https://daily.jstor.org/how-medieval-surgeons-shaped-sex-and-gender/ Fascinating take on the historical origins of how sex and gender came to be defined, and the role of medical surgeons in it.
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The Case For No Econ PhD
It’s the loveliest Twitter thread I discovered in Tyler Cowen’s recent blog post. Melissa Kearney, Economics Professor at the University of Maryland, argues that 6 year Econ PhDs are terrible, especially for female students. Tyler goes a step further and says Econ PhDs should be abolished. Instead, he suggests three years of graduate economics education […]
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Don’t Let TikTok Play You!
I couldn’t resist my curiosity to find out more about TikTok, the social media app that’s bringing the mass following for scores of people from India’s hinterland. Watching all those TikTok people for a couple of days, I am left with an overpowering sense of fatigue. I know I qualify to be judgemental, elitist and […]
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Much Fuss Over GDP But How Do We Measure Happiness?
So, what are we going to do when we fix our GDP numbers back home? May be, join the global efforts on finding means to measure happiness, because number-driven GDP is already being punched for being an ineffective tool.
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Democracy versus Growth?
I live in the world’s largest democracy but it often confounds me. It confounds me when I see people voting for leaders who don’t do justice to their roles.
Pallavi Singh 