On the road to Liberty

The current campaign against corruption provides a golden opportunity to Dr Manmohan Singh to lead from the front. There is an urgent need for speeding up the process of economic, administrative and judicial reforms, not only to push the economy to a higher growth path, but also to help reduce the scope for corruption. Being the Prime Minister of India, he must spell out the options before the country. Then it would be for the people to decide in a democracy. Typically, corruption, or rent seeking, is a consequence of the gulf that exists between supply and demand for any goods or services due to regulatory interventions. Despite, two decades of economic reforms, the regulatory and policy environment in many areas of the economy continue to be quite restrictive, and discretionary powers prevail. It is particularly in those areas where corruption continues to prevail. The current focus on corruption should help us investigate these details and come up with systemic reforms. Any a...

The media frenzy around the unveiling of Tata Motors’ Nano, may drown two of the most significant aspects of this project, it provides a glimpse of the manufacturing revolution that has largely bypassed India, so far. In that context, tragic events in Singur a year ago could have been easily avoided. This article was published in Liberty Institute's website In Defence of Liberty , on 13 January 2008. The media frenzy around the unveiling of Tata Motors’ Nano, may drown two of the most significant aspects of this project - firstly, it is a completely new product, which aims to make personal transportation accessible to those who could not afford a car earlier; secondly, and more importantly, it provides a glimpse of the manufacturing revolution that has largely bypassed India, so far. While Tata Motors has a long history of making commercial vehicles, it launched its first passenger car only in 1998. In the last ten years, it has produced a million cars, but remains a relatively sma...

Populism may be an inherent part of democracy, but one must be wary of opportunism. I review the book, 'Can India grow without Bharat?' by Shankar Acharya, one of India's leading economic policy maker. This was published in the Financial Express , on 15 April 2007, under the title " The Economics of populism ". Can India grow without Bharat, asks Shankar Acharya in the title of his new book. Whether you are a politician or an economist, the answer to that question is almost always a no. So what is it the economist wants to bring out in this book? Acharya had served as the chief economist advisor to the government of India for seven long years between 1993 and 2000. Unusually, he served four prime ministers in four different political formations during this period getting a ringside view of politics of economic decisions. Here he brings together 33 short essays, written between late 2003 and 2006. These essays cover a range of issues from macro economic policies, ...

WTO ministerial meeting was being held in Hong Kong, this month, and as in the past, this time too, anti-trade and anti-globlisation groups were protesting outside on the streets. In this article, "What can India learn from Hong Kong" , published in the Far Eastern Economic Review, in December 2005, I look at the experience of Hong Kong, a city that has thrived on an unilateral free trade policy, and was not even negotiating at WTO! There is more than a little irony that the World Trade Organization ministerial is being held in Hong Kong this month. Hong Kong is the epitome of the success of unilateral free trade policies: A few pieces of rock, devoid of any natural resources, the territory today ranks among the most prosperous places on earth. Hong Kong’s success is rooted in the institutions of rule of law and economic freedom. The territory did not negotiate any free trade deal. It just declared it unilaterally, and the rest is history. Yet the contrast between the succe...