Reporting from Workstation 9

Labels: Arbit

For those with some time on their hand, be sure to read Dean Baker's 'The Conservative Nanny State'.
True to his belief that all knowledge must be free, a free copy of his book is downloadable at
http://www.conservativenannystate.org/

Labels: Economics

Blogosphere is know for plagiarism. And since I'm very much a part of it, let me also indulge.
Theme(borrowed from another blog): The soundtrack of my life..

1. In the womb: King of the Road, Roger Miller
2. Birth: Song 2, Blur
3. Early childhood: I shall be released, Bob Dylan
4. First Crush: Hello I love you, The Doors
5. Teenage: Bobby Brown goes down, Frank Zappa
6. My first breakup: I will survive, Cake
7. My first serious achievement: I feel pretty, West Side Story, Julie Andrews.
8. College: Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
9. Friendship: Stand by me, Oasis
10. First Relationship: Strawberry fields forever, The Beatles
11. Graduate studies: Coming Back to Life, Pink Floyd
12. Love: The Rain Song, Led Zeppelin
13. Fitness: Feel Good Inc., Gorillaz
14. Marriage: I'm sticking with you, The Velvet Underground
15. Career: Heart of Gold, Neil Young
16. Retirement: Fade Together, Franz Ferdinand
17. Death: Perfect day, Lou Reed

17 songs!! Phew..but I'm quite happy with the album.

Labels: Music

Labels: Pointless personal stuff

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=&ml_collection=81614&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fshows%2Fthe_daily_show%2Findex.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true

After this, goto Jon stewart and Colbert Report Crossover option and and click on fountainhead.

I hope this is the right link. Very pertinent to my earlier post:)

Labels: links

This is what I really think

My blog has surprised so many. I was and am fairly surprised, and a little disappointed. Disappointed with myself.

This blog is not public for good reason. I am still trying to figure out my place in the world of economics. What kind of economics India needs? What kind of economics is right? It is a quest that I started at the age of 12 and lost track of in college. I am still disappointed with what I didn't bother learning.

Economics was my first love(sorry boys) and will be my last.

When I start my PhD, I hope to be conversant enough to comment on other's(economists blog) leaving a link to mine. Simple dreams.

Anyway, I feel like giving people some background to how my mind functions. That music, sports, movies and boy's(to a lesser extent) are not all there is to me.

My first big influence was Ayn Rand. At the age of 13, I could not grasp all of what she said. But this was what I got out of her books.That I would be a successful businesswoman one day and my work would come before everything. I would be identified by my work.

The flip side of reading the book at a young age, is that it makes you think the book is how your life will turn out like. I thought I would fall in love with a physicist. I chose boys based on what their career ambition was than anything else. I still cannot get over my immaturity. I look back and laugh.

Yesterday, I picked up the only work of hers I hadn't read. Anthem. She discusses a world of extreme communism and what happens to one man who dares to think different. Her work, though extreme, is in good spirit. It salutes the individual. It gives hope to people like me, that I must allow myself to think for myself and do what I wish to do.

But I cannot truly be different,because a lot of me comes from my family and my culture. I am libertarian in my view of the world. I believe that there should be no rules and laws to inhibit a person's freedom. I think it's alright if somebody dosen't believe monogamy. I think it's alright if people wish to take (dangerous) drugs voluntarily(as long it's not somebody I wish to see live), I don't believe in God-not because I think the individual is God(I depart from Ayn Rand, here), but because there is no scientific proof. I think I will become dust when I die. I believe that I must always be a good person, because the conscience exists and she is very nasty, when you go against her. I believe piracy is alright, and the only way to fight it is to make all knowledge free. The welfare benefit to the world will be far far greater.

But I'm not averse to the idea of a housewife. Because, when I see a baby(girl preferably), I always think of all the wonderful things I can show her, the books I can read for her. I don't think that anyway compromises my belief of women as equal as men. I believe whatever a person wishes to do, clean the house, sweep the roads, teach economics, be a playboy girl, make pornographic videos..they should be free to pursue it. And that everyone deserves that choice. And that is how the world should be.

This is how I think....today

Labels: Me

Labels: Foxtrot

Labels: Lee Young Ae

Since 'anonymous' remarked that my last post was a little carelessly written, let me be a little more careful henceforth.
I sincerely hope my grammar has not gone for a toss, because Singapore has claimed many victims in the past. Not to forget, my many Chinese friends. It is a constant struggle.
I attended a seminar on "Blogging as a social science phenomenon" some time back. An interesting seminar. It had on it's panel a political scientist, a sociologist and a psychologist.
Some studies showed that the largest section of bloggers keep blogs to improve their writing.
That men wrote more on technology and politics and other field, while women tended to be more personal.
Lastly, until last year, technology was the most popular subject, followed by politics. In recent times politics had taken over. For good reason.
Now on to "Lee Young Ae". The woman most men in Asia wish to marry, and most women in Asia wish to be like. And again, when I say Asia, it does not include Indians. We are not Asians. We are South Asians.
Anyway, the show Dae Jang geum, is a rage in Asia. It's a korean TV show. The Korean wave can be credited to a large extent to this show. The actress Lee Young Ae, is the most beautiful woman I have seen. Seriously. I honestly hadn't found any of the East Asian actress even remotely attractive until she came along.
I was having a nice breakfast at coffee bean this morning, when I saw Lee Young Ae on the cove of "Asia"(it's a magazine). The magazine spoke about how Korean women are dominating Asia in popularity. The show did not have any skin show. I'm serious. Only once in the entire 70 episodes, did Lee Young Ae show her feet. And yet it has become the most famous show in the history of television.
The magazine rebuked, Zhang something who directed "the curse of the golden flower", for it's needless show of skin. The movie was popular in west only, again for cleavage show. In the banquet too, Zhang Ziyi( of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' and 'Hidden Dragon, Crouching tiger'(it's not the other way round)fame)stripped all the way. I was fairly taken aback. Not to forget Gong Li in Miami Vice. Dae Jang Geum was also praised by Hu Jin tao and others. She is a perfect blend of traditional values and modern ideas of empowerment. She is the epitome of feminity.
The right mix.
Reality wise, it's very rare we find that right mix in Asia.
Either it is as it is in singapore. Overbearing women. They run the household, they make the money. If they feel disillusioned they don't even marry.
Or it's like in China, women are still meant to be in the kitchen and wash clothes and cook.
Or it's as in Phillipines, where women are sent to call centres, exported to western countries as nurses or prostitutes, or as maids to Singapore. Must be the case in Vietnam too.
Or as in Indonesia and Malaysia,;muslim countries. The less said the better. I know I am biased.
The little I've seen of Cambodia and Laos, I think their situation will soon be like Singapore.
India as usual suffers from too much variety. It has all kinds.
Anyway, those Indian who have not yet been affected with the "halla"(?) effect or the "K" wave, look up Lee Young Ae and Dae Jang geum. It's good to know about it.

Labels: Grammar and Lee Young Ae, Spelling

Lessons for India.
Warning: Ive got time on my hands so this post will be wandering..implies lot of eco.
Singapore has this policy. Based on their A level marks, students are sent to the best US universities..all paid for. When them come back they must serve a bond with the Singapore Government. So really at the end of it..all the best brains in this country work in the Government.
The US elections are on, the potential candidates are Hillary(Yale Law), Obama(harvard law), Guiliani(NYU law), Cox(CPA,Investor), Brownback(JD). Educational Qualifications Count as much as integrity of the candidate(no criminal records..they re mostly lawyers..) and economic leaning.
Qualified Politicians in recent times in India.
How did India do when we had qualified people with some say.
In Goa, Parikar-an IIT graduate, transformed Goa's economy. He made computer education compulsory for all. I think he lost eventually, but a good man made a difference.
S M Krishna- A lawyer from George Washington University, gave my city world wide fame, improved roads, got the private sector involved and transformed Bangalore. But he was charged with some sort of 'brahmin' conspiracy(favored bangalore only and the 'brahmin' company infosys). I am a brahmin and I get angry about these false accusations with good reason. Srinivas, Shruthi and I have some plan for the south some time in the future. Three brahmins..might lead to some problems there too. Don't you think, Chini. I hope I'm blowing things out of proportions, but the MFer Deve Gowda sent my usually settled blood boiling!
Maybe Krishna ignored the rural areas, that is acceptable, but bringing personal vendetta and raising caste issues to substantiate these claims was unacceptable. Especially from an incompetent man who was made Primeminister and all I remember was pictures him taking naps!
This reminds of the offshoring controversy in the US. I don't know as yet what to make it. That I've read The World is flat does not help. TF has really hyped up the whole issue. Celebrate 1st Jan 2000 as our independence day! My foot, he really lives in some warped reality.
It got us some exposure..not like we can make a living out of it. There are many pressing issues in this country. The section it did help was the educated english speaking low income people. There's no 'trickle down' effect specifically from outsourcing. Ofcourse from America's point of you, they have according to reports gainsed much more than they lost. how they compensated those who lost, is something I have not much knowledge.
This brings me to another dillusionment. Partly due to my professor. He's worked with some of the greatest economists in the world. He's from Bangladesh. I love attending his classes(development economics) becoz it's easier to swallow his words than some american economist, never seen what constrints developing countries face, swears by the RBC model....I'm getting carried away. But the more I learn fancy models, the more I feel like applying them to India and the more I realize, they don't suit India at all.
Jeff SAchs believes Foreign aid will to the trick. I think that a cleaning of the human soul is the only way to remove poverty. No amount of foreign aid will help SSA if the rich keep feeding rebels to spread drugs and violence. I wonder what Adam Smith said on the ethics of capitalism. Let me wiki it. Nothing directly relevant.
I guess some sort of realization has dawned after Stiglitz(this man most often makes sense, because he uses what call the rational expectations approach. Use all the information available at the current moment. Not just because some basithe graph moves up, the dead weight loss goes up. I think Economics still must be treated as a social science) exposed IMF's many botch ups..atleast they should have got economists from the respective countries to give them some perspective. Instead of following textbook theorems.
Anyway, getting back to my original point..I'll make it short. I'm sleepy now.
Good qualifications of politicians is a must. I long to see the day when academic qualifications of leaders becomes one of the more important considerations in his getting voted into power

Labels: Boredom

Term Paper ingenuity.

When you have to submit close to 5 term papers in a month, how do you go about it.
I've taken the following courses this semester
1. International Trade
2.Economic Development
3.Microeconometrics(applied)
4.Time Series-Econometrics(theoretical)
5.Independent Study-DSGE Modeling.
6. thesis preparation
Here's how I've planned.
1. Literature survey ruled out-lack of time
2.Empirical study most preferred
3.Analytical writing with a own perspective and a little economtrics-not bad
4. Try to interlink the varying topics

Thus far, my plan is
1. International Trade-Labour migration and trade(from the US perspective-empirical analysis)
2.Economic Development-Brain Drain- From developing country perspective
3.Thesis, DSGE modeling-monetary policy modeling.
4.Microeconometrics-try as I did could not find anything on labour migration. Settled with good old education. Ordered probit model of what determines junior college/high school completion
5.Time series- I'll definitely try and connect it with my DSGE model. Probably, structural break in Canada's inflation regime in 1991.

So far so good. Atleast the topics are dowm. But terrible times lie ahead. Dae Jang geum(the korean show I'm crazy about. Upto buffy level even.) now needs to take a break from my eyes.I can almost hear her scream bu keyi..bu keyi..she has possessed me..

On the positive side, I am making a long due visit to NTU on Sunday. I geeky friend from school is now in a band. Shru J and I have a packed sunday. On saturday, I plan to visit China town with Chin chin for the Chinese new year celebration. I have much to look forward to ..:)

Labels: Economics etc.

How do you measure a teacher's worth?
In India, the NGO Centre for Civil Society is pushing for more competition in the education sector and simultaneously, a pay by performance method to improve the quality of teaching.
A product of St Stephen's College Delhi I didn't see many good teachers. May be they were good, and I was a bad Student.
In Singapore, I cannot but thank everyday to have got such dedicated teachers that make me appreciate the subject much much more. But you have to hand it to Singapore cause they never compromise on pay to get quality.
An article discussing whether teachers are overpaid in America makes an interesting read.
http://american.com/archive/2007/february-0207/measuring-a-teacher2019s-worth

Labels: Education

Half the world away..I've been lost ..I've been found..But I don't feel down......(clap clap)...-Oasis.
Music is back in my life. I now have a guitar and a mouth organ. And I have radio. Life is good.
India's inflation rate has shot up to 6.58% due to food prices. No wonder the Phillip's curve relationship does not hold.
I started my thesis work with great hope. I wanted to discover if there existed any relationship between inflation and output gap for India. I read a lot of papers. They were all very discouraging, but I nonetheless went ahead. The cul-de-sac quest..had to have an end. The results were inconclusive. A negative insignificant relatioship. Depressesed to not have got a basic result, I abandoned any hopes to going through with any general equilibrium model for India. smart decision wo3 says. If inflation is gonna bounce around every odd week, the days of inflation targetting are nowhere near.
we are apparently tampering around with our exchange rate too. So there. But then we are emerging and just because there is a model I should not be greedy to apply it.
You have to wait.
That's we are learning in the development economics course. A very chilled out course, but really hits you with reality checks. Why are the poor poor? We cannot rely on Solow's mechanical interpretation. Institutions, Intergration and Geography play a role. And each economist tries to push his own theory. I believe institutions are of foremost importance.

Again institutions not how world bank or IMF would define them. It's very subjective. But on average good governance, savings and investment, property rights, open economies are in principal the important ones.

Rodrik and Rodriguez in a paper mentioned that each country must identify their binding constraint by some economic methodoloy and try and improve on that. Apparently finally there is some consensus(a rare term put in practice in economics) on this theory.

What troubles me about development economics is there the lack of consensus. The cross country regressions are so filled with errors. Five papers will conclude 5 different things. Who do you believe. Is income inequality increasing - decreasing? what is the poverty line?

My prof told us that once phillippines found that it had much higher poverty than indonesia, they lowered the poverty line and reduced the gap. My friend( an analyst with Citibank) says she does believe in econometrics. But it's the best we can do. To err is human after all..

Labels: Economics

What a wonderful day!
I checked my mail, and instead of just a newsletter for NYT, McKinsey and HDFC, I had three mails from three close friends.
One just got her article published in the ET Special Report SEction- "South gets Wise"(07.02.2007) about south Indians getting more experimental with food. An excellent article. Anjie: I am so happy!
Another said she may be considering coming to Singapore for her masters. I really really really(I could go on..) hope she does! Tommy I hope you get placed here. We'll be one happy family then:)
Swot: Fret not, The days of getting tutu'd will soon be over.

Anyway let me get down to the more Government conspiracies happening in my little lion city.
You must know, singapore is very particular about getting foreign talent. They were scared to death in the nineties when their Total factor productivity ws shown by Yound et al and later publicized by Krugman, to be negligible. From then on it's one way forward for Singapore. Borrow ideas. Bring in foreign technology and talent.
Now thats it's possible near the frontier (Solow Curve-nearing steady state), it's investing heavily in research.
But not only do they want foreigners to come in, they want them to come in young.
The hope is the pretty little city will grow on you and also that in the process, you'll find someone here and then marry and give birth to children. And help the Singapore economy grow.
It's not a bad plan. It's not a bad life. But probably not for me.
Of late however, I have noticed one of the means of the government to spread this message.
Cab drivers.
LAtely I've been going home very late. Afraid to walk across little india alone(shame on Indians-only palce in singapore I am afraid of) I take the cab.
It's funny how, each cab walla starts of with "you're indian?"-> "you're fair?"->"you look like chinese from far"-> "you come here to study?"->" after this what do you paln to do?"->"don't you like singapore?"->"Can, Can. work here. very nice place"-> "you look like you are twenty..so young"-> "you should stay here. Many men will like you"-> "then get married and live here. very nice place"...
In monetary policy we say, the best thing to do is to avoid the crises. Singapore the paradigm of that school of thought. In every sense. Hen hao!

My posts henceforth may be largely concentrated on either, immigration, fixed income securties or Canada. Maybe Microfinance and aid effectiveness one in a while..Got some 5 term papers and presentations coming up. Gonna Die Die Die..
To start with here's a nice cartoon. you can also look up other funny ones. I got this link from "you know who"-s blog.
http://cartoonbox.slate.com/hottopic/?image=86&topicid=86

Labels: Immigration