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India: Union & State budgets search engine
Posted on February 21, 2008 |A search engine to search India’s Union budgets and State budgets (available) in one click A wealth of materials is available online today about budgets in India. Unfortunately they are dispersed across dozens of websites that take time to find. This search engine will enable to to search official budget websites of Government of India and most state governments in one click. It is periodically updated. The results are not perfect, but it is the best that I was able to produce given the clutter and the constant changes in the budget websites of various states. Loading -
Economics for beginners: An unconventional list of books, audio, video
Posted on February 20, 2008 |“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” – John Maynard Keynes A unconventional list for the beginner that starts with economic issues than theories I live in a part of the world where economics is considered ‘dry’ and boring. I blame it on the textbooks that are routinely prescribed in initiating beginners into the... -
Are we asking the right questions on Social Security & Medicare?
Posted on June 2, 2007 |Pertinent questions are being asked about the sustainability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the US…but the causes and options are not articulated fully Since there is a lot of hullaboo about the “crisis” in social security I tried to find what it’s all about. To my considerable surprise, I found that if the current trends continue, the system will go insolvent in early 2040’s. This kind of foresight in fiscal planning came as a surprise to me – but it is welcome. The crisis is attributed to a demographic shift towards the aged that is going to sharply... -
Collected works on Anthropology and institutional economics
Posted on May 20, 2007 |Anthropology and institutional economics Rating: 3 out of 5 Editor: James M. Acheson Year: 1994 Category: Anthropology, economics, institutional economics Publisher: University Press of America ISBN: 0819195952 This volume is one of the rare collection of papers I found looking at Anthropology and institutional economics. Surprisingly, though the two have a large scope for collaboration, there is very little work happening between these two disciplines, to my knowledge. This volume provides a useful introduction. The book starts with an introduction about Anthropology and Institutional economics by James Acheson. This is followed by an essay on New Institutionalism by Robert Bates.... -
“Consequentialist perspective” of economists and Human Rights
Posted on April 15, 2007 |Is the language of rights useful in discussing poverty? Economists seem to claim these days that the rights approach may undermine the cause I encountered many economists writing tentatively about human rights these days. Perhaps there is an extensive literature about it already. The main premise of arguments seems to be while the ideals of human rights are good, the approach will only impair the reduction of poverty by advocating unsound policies. Amartya Sen responds to these issues in a debate with Jeffry Frankel at Harvard University. Webcast of debate is available. The programme runs for an hour and fifteen... -
Wonders and the Flaws of Intuitive Thinking – Webcast of Kahneman’s talk
Posted on April 15, 2007 |Inspiring talk by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman on intuitive thinking Vs. reasoning and its application to choice theory The introductory lecture to the class of 2008 in Princeton was done by Prof. Daniel Kahneman on the wonders and flaws of intuitive thinking. The webcast of the lecture is available in the Pricneton media website. Kahneman distinguishes between two modes of thinking – Reasoning and intuition. While intuition is powerful and accounts for most of our thinking, it is suceptible to illusions. These illusions can result in wrong choices in a variety of situations. He discusses the topic and its relevance... -
Paradox of Choice – Why more is less by Barry Schwartz
Posted on April 15, 2007 |More choice is equated with greater welfare, is this tenable? Too much choice can paradoxically make us be better but feel worse argues the psychologist In many societies today welfare is associated with freedom, and freedom with choice. It is commonly argued that people are better off with more choice. Psycologist Barry Schwarts discusses various experiments by psychologists and behavioural economists that test this claim. The talk lasts about one hour, and is worth every minute of it. [googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200[/googlevideo] Many talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I... -
A chirpy note on TN budget 2007-08
Posted on March 23, 2007 |Tamil Nadu has many significan policy success stories – in part due to getting the budgetary priorities right We are living in a time when positive media coverage of budget is restricted either to tax cuts or for reducing fiscal deficits. Despite the fact that enormous proportion of India’s GDP is spent by the government, media hardly discusses what governments spend on, and how. State government budgets are crucial to national development given that states are in charge of important areas such as education, health, water, etc. Given my interests, I have closely followed education, health, child care and a few... -
Tamil Nadu state budget 2007-08: News & Analysis
Posted on March 20, 2007 |The Tamil Nadu State budget 2007-2008 was presented on 23 March 2007 by Finance Minister Prof. K. Anbazhagan. This page has automatically generated news and analysis on the budget The budget related documents can be found in the website of Tamil Nadu government here. The budget papers for this year have not been updated as yet in this site, but the budget speech can be read here. The webcast of the speech is available here. The speech is conveiniently divided by sections, so incase you are interested in just one section (e.g. Tax, education, social welwafe, etc.), you can easily... -
News on Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra, Tamil Nadu Budgets 2007-08
Posted on March 17, 2007 |This is an experimental feature to collect 10 news items on budget in each state I have been trying to various socio-econoimic policy issues across states regularly. The problem with regular news search is that they often throw up the same states. To search state by state using the state names is cumbersome. I am working on a system to automate the process. For example, I gave the keyword “budget” here. My Yahoo pipes system automatically generates four queries: “Tamil nadu budget”, “Kerala budget”, “Karnataka Budget” and “Ahdnra budget” (without quotes), gets the top 10 results for each, puts them...
