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Prof. Sudatta Bannerjee is an Assistant Professor the current Head of the Department of Economics & Finance. She teaches all courses related to Development Economics. The courses might appear boring at first – voluminous books, plethora of text, and matter-of-fact content. But does it make any Economics student dread these subjects. No! Because when you get an instructor who puts Marvel references in the question paper, how dare you crib about it!

Most of us know Rishi sir from the PoE class. We have all laughed at his witty remarks, his rebukes, examples revolving around sports and his ultra-amiable nature. Here’s a sneak peek to Dr. Rishi Kumar’s chamber in the Economics & Finance Department where the Economics Editorial Board had a little chat with him...

On 15th August 2018, as the whole country rejoiced India’s 71st Independence Day, rupee celebrated by breaching the 70 mark against the US Dollar. The economic imbalance brought on by this event is clearly the talk of the day, if not the year. But what does this mean? Why exactly did it happen? And, how is it going to affect you?

It is widely known that in 1700 AD, India and China jointly accounted for almost half of the world’s GDP. As a result of colonisation, their share fell to around five per cent by 1950. However, the recent growth of the Asian neighbours has been extraordinary, and it is common consensus that if the trend is sustained, both economies could recapture their historic share of the world GDP...

The Big Three: Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings are the gold standard in rating financial instruments. Any instrument without a rating from at least one of the Big Three, as they are known, is not taken seriously. Together they control about 95% of the ratings market share...

Patents are a form of intellectual property. Intuitively, one would like to be rewarded for an invention where one has put sincere efforts to produce a solution to an existing problem and from which mankind would reap benefits. Apart from felicitating the person with awards for a breakthrough research, it seems fair to be compensated monetarily in proportion of how great the invention is. And how to decide the monetary value of the invention? That’s where patents come in...

On the 9th of February, the two major exchanges in India, The BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) and NSE (National Stock Exchange) declared that they would end all licensing agreements with foreign exchanges. They stopped providing live stock prices to The Singapore and Dubai stock exchanges. The volume traded in the foreign jurisdiction has reached large proportions which is dragging liquidity out of the India, which isn’t a good sign for the Indian Exchanges...

Internet is a digital infrastructure. It was developed by DARPA (U.S. Agency for development of defence related projects) to serve as a secure means of communication for U.S. Defence forces. Same story goes with G.P.S which was developed to serve military purposes for the United States. Now imagine what would have our world been had these agencies not opened up these services for universal access and private innovation?

It’s 2018, India is just one year into the elections and parties have already blown the bugle. And like every other government keeping the elections in mind, Prime Minister Modi, in this year’s annual budget has allowed India's subsidy bill to balloon in the lead up to the crucial elections at the risk of breaching his budget deficit goals...

Nearly a month ago, Narendra Modi gave his plenary address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He expressed what his audience wanted to hear: a strong defence of globalisation. In fact, he went as far as equating economic protectionism with terrorism...

India has been put into a perennial election mode with each year consisting of the general elections or those of the state legislatures. This kind of an environment is not at all conducive for an economy like India with reforms being the need of the hour, not populism. The cost on the government for conducting the elections in a free and fair manner has been increasing manifold every passing general election...

Before we delve into robots and robot taxes, let us digress for a minute. In ancient Greece, slavery was not a crime. In fact, it underpinned the very fabric of Greek society and played an integral role in its functioning. Slaves were status symbols for some, and mere tools in a workshop for others. Deemed less than human, slaves were thought—by the Greeks—to be better off in servitude. Without their masters, they were believed to have no purpose...

Let there be a factory which makes loud noise. And let there be a hospital next door. Also, let the subsistence of the workers in the factory and that of workers in the hospital depend on the respective enterprises. The hospital, however, needs a silent environment for it to function else the doctors cannot so much as use a stethoscope in the noise that the factory produces. What should be the solution to this problem?

It is often believed that being efficient in a market is the best way to keep our resources sustained and have a sustainable development in place. Increased efficiency leads to the manufacturing of products and the services to be provided at a cheaper price than it was before. This in turn increases the purchasing behavior and the use of such products...

Studying economic theory often feels like looking at a completely different world than the one in which we live every day. By using concepts likes rational choice theory or utility maximising functions, traditional economic models certainly gain in tractability and sometimes in insightfulness...

Behavioural economics is the subfield of economics that focuses on the psychological, social and emotional factors that influence decision making. It basically is the study of psychology as it relates to the decision making processes of individuals and institutions...

Let us consider a hypothetical world, in which a certain country named Winterfell is surrounded by countries Casterly Rock and Highgarden, both of which had carved a special niche for themselves in the International Market, thanks to their geographical location and intelligent techniques of harnessing the nature-endowed resources...

We've all heard the word “Margin”, It's is one of the most commonly used words in the English language. It means to provide with an edge or a border. For a layman the word margin has absolutely no technicality, but if we use the word from an economic point  of view it becomes an intricate and a complex subject altogether...

Each and every one of us has definitely encountered the term “Game theory” somewhere or the other, in our lives. But what is it, exactly? In simple terms, game theory is the study of conflicts and cooperation that occurs among rational participants in a competitive situation, through mathematical models...

Nothing better illustrates government failure and the real estate crisis in an economy than the housing bubble. Nearly a decade after the United States bubble burst spectacularly, setting in motion a global financial crisis, this b-word is still doing the rounds. But what is this housing bubble that the market talks about...