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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...

The United States of America is the current reigning superpower, but have you thought why does it give the US Dollar, legitimacy as the international standard for trade...

All currency and commodity exchanges around the world are closely regulated, especially the ones that involve trades across borders. Any exchange that circumvented this governmental setup was termed as illegal trades and marked as the ‘Black market’, until now. Enter Cryptocurrency...

The age old concept of Universal Basic Income or UBI (for those who love abbreviations) has recently started gaining ears in Political discussions. With Governments across the Globe brainstorming antidotes of poverty, UBI is a concept worth serious deliberation...

After all the banter and criticism about the Variable Mess Fund Deduction, let's take a step back and take a look at it from an unbiased policy perspective. We'll also see how the chain of events that followed the announcement of Variable deductions from the mess fund for individuals were in line with what has been predicted and explained by existing theories. Some aspects of the issue have been knowingly skipped to focus purely on policy and refrain from discussing politics.

Reading the title, you must have thought, ‘Obviously, that must be a mistake!’, but let me assure you, it is not, and I shall in due course present a well-founded argument to that effect. But first before we move on, let’s see what the exact definition of selfishness is...

Where can you see an English Duke sipping an espresso with a 25-year-old tech entrepreneur from Salt Lake City? In one place, ladies and gentleman:  Davos-Klosters--the Swiss getaway that hosts the annual World Economic Forum...

The Union Budget 2017-18 has been widely followed by tax-payers, stock market players, and other important stake holders in the formal and informal sectors. There's a good reason for that. Following the large scale policy intervention in the form of demonetization of the five hundred and thousand rupee notes, and the passage of the GST bill, there was a large interest in the tax structure that would be proposed and how it would directly affect the average Indian citizen...

As a student of economics, one frequents many questions that push us to rethink the role of economics in the modern age. There are doubts regarding how economics is being studied as an exact science, such as this article denouncing the Nobel prize in economics. There is criticism regarding the methods of study employed in economics as classical theory tends to be outdated and leaves little room for alternative schools of thought...

As 2016 came to a close, I’m sure that you, like most of the people, made a New Year's resolution and I believe, like the majority of them, you too are going to give up on it before the year is half over. Traditional economic analysis would attribute this result to a difference between what was expected and what actually happened...

On November 8, with minimal warning, PM Modi’s government announced that Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes ceased to be legal tender in order to wage a war against black money. The move has been thought of facilitating a crackdown on fake currency, corruption and unaccounted black money. Whether this sudden decision will be a success or failure, only time will tell but it is bound to have some social ramifications along with the economic ones...

"This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics" read the last lines of the introduction and immediately you know that you are in for a treat.  The above line is from Paul Krugman’s Theory of Interstellar trade. This paper, as he claims, was written when he was ‘an oppressed assistant professor caught up in the academic rat race’ to amuse himself...

When Kerala introduced a “fat” tax of 14.5%, it was applauded by many. It was seen as a responsible move by the government to curb rising rates of obesity and related ailments such as diabetes, cholesterol and cardiac diseases among others. The policy makers had hoped that taxing people heavily on processed junk food would prompt people to move away from calorie-laden, unhealthy food choices. But here’s the catch....

Closing off months of speculation, the government on Saturday, 20th August 2016 finally announced Dr Urjit R Patel as the 24th governor of the Reserved Bank of India...

The Economics Association will be doing a series of comprehensive all-you-need-to-know articles on current topics. Here is a glimpse of what was discussed during the Brexit panel discussion with Mr. Shamuel Tharu on August 26th...

Ralph Seger once said, “One way to end up with $1 million is to start with $2 million and use technical analysis.” For a very long time, this statement seemed like a nebulous, dark chasm to me, all shrouded in mystery...

We've all had those moments of uttermost confusion when we couldn't decide what we'd do in a tricky situation, haven't we? When we've had to weigh out all the possibilities carefully, because we simply couldn't tell what the consequences would be? Well, the Economists do this in a more refined fashion and they call it the 'Game Theory'...

When I came to know recently that my grandfather was a big bond purchaser in our village, I became very curious and started to probe and understand the whole thing. I learnt that he would give loans apart from the regular wages to the laborers working on his farm to retain the labor force and also to some extent to meet their immediate finance concerns. Of course this he did in the exchange of promissory notes (bonds) from them...

These days, eating out has become an expensive affair. The total bill amounts to much more than what was expected while ordering the food. This magnification of the bill is due to an increase in the taxes and charges. These taxes and charges added in the bill are...

India is not only the world’s second most populated country but also one of the most culturally diverse ones. The first question that arises is how this population affects the country’s economic growth. India’s population has been steadily increasing, from 450 million in 1960, it now stands at 1.28 billion...