Best Of Economics On The Web This Week - 17 April 2016

​China

A ‘Chinafile’ conversation on the Panama papers and China

A North Korea think tank referred to China as “a vanity-driven nation bowing down to the US” at the cost of losing a precious friendship forged in blood.

This movie has played out elsewhere in the world and in China too again. But, it has returned to China: “Trying to reduce housing inventory by encouraging individuals to increase borrowing is a dangerous experiment.”

Martin Feldstein abandons his critical faculties too and falls for the charms of China.

South China Morning Post reports that Vincent Chan, head of China research at Credit Suisse, is worried about the China economy in the medium-run and long run. How short is his short run?

China’s Xinjiang province signs deals worth USD2.0bn with Pakistan.

India

UK Government opens probe into Tata Steel ‘fraud’. A rather strange ‘China-like’ response.

Moody’s said rising FDI inflows continue to narrow India’s external financing needs and mitigate the risk of a potential widening of the current account deficit related to weakening remittances.

India could be sitting on a gold mine, and not even know it.

This article in Swarajya believes that India can eliminate poverty but does not mention ‘income’ or ‘employment’.

Surjit Bhalla, citing mainly inflation statistics, argues that NDA-2 is not UPA-3

SEBI publishes new rules requiring transparency from fund houses on how they remunerate their executives and their financial advisors who sell their fund to retail investors.

Bloomberg discusses the potential of Unified Payments Interface in India. Leapfrogging conventional banking with digital technology.

A must-read piece by Tamal Bandyopadhyay on the changing landscape in Indian banking.

India could potentially invest more than 130,000 crores of Rupees in Iran. Are we sure of the numbers?

Royal Bank of Scotland to close its India operations.

Do not let the somewhat overdramatized header dissuade you from reading this piece on the importance of de-risking Indian farming for which the crop insurance scheme unveiled by the government earlier in the year is an important first step. There needs to be a constant and continuous empirical evaluation of the scheme to iron out wrinkles from time to time.

Comprehensive remarks by Indian FM Arun Jaitley on the Indian economy.

A good article (book excerpt) on the role of MIT in IITs.

General/Global

Prithwis Mukherjee’s lucid article on Blockchain and cryptocurrency

A massive trawl of Northern Hemisphere rainfall data for the last 1,200 yearsrevealed there had been more dramatic wet-dry weather extremes in earlier, cooler centuries before humans set off fossil fuel-driven global warming.

France ‘Up All Night’ protests entered 12th night; started out as a protest against a draft labour bill but extended to other issues.

Accuity is a firm is in the business of selling database to banks of people and entities to avoid. It has more than a million entries.

Market inefficiency and Stephen Curry of Golden State Warriors.

Dan Lyons would rather work for an old-fashioned furniture maker than in a tech. start-up.

Will be useful to know how much (if) Dubai has changed since this article was written in 2009.

America

Puerto Rico declares bank emergency

Mario Longhi, head of US Steel, blames Europe and US for being complacent towards the threat from China on steel dumping. China says that its overcapacity problems in steel won’t go away soon.

Where they live matters a lot for the poor in the US for their life expectancy. New and interesting research.

A small problem with the acronym for the name Antonin Scalia School of Law at the George Mason University.

An index of confidence among small businesses in America hit a 2-year low.

Financial Markets

In a desperate bid to be listened to or in a case of successful wooing or lobbying, Mark Mobius bats for the inclusion of China A-shares in MSCI Index.

If this FT news story is anything to go by, Blackrock’s Larry Fink gets it, on negative rates.

Woodford Investment Management in the UK would disclose all costs of running its funds, including ‘hidden’ costs. Just six months ago, asset managers were accused of ousting the chief of the Investment Association in the UK because he pushed for greater disclosure of costs and charges to clients. Nor are asset managers willing to discuss executive pay excesses in their own midst.

To succeed in investing, start reading.

Easwar Prasad and Karim Foda are not sure if global recovery would be fleeting and fragile.

This FAQ on negative interest rates in Wall Street Journal (from Feb. 28, 2016) is useful.

Asia-Pacific

Normally, whose fingerprints the police would look for, in a crime scene?

Andy Mukherjee has a great column on Singapore Corporate Boards of Directors

It might be too early to tell, though. Australia new home sales dropped 5.3% in February.

Japan to print additional ¥10,000 bills as more people stash their cash at home​