tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33927502009-07-14T19:52:12.866-04:00Random thoughts of an economics teacher.Udayannoreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-72791329195488061992009-07-14T19:43:00.002-04:002009-07-14T19:52:10.072-04:00

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the a case that the Internal Revenue Service, America's tax collector, has brought against UBS, the Swiss Bank. See "Behind UBS Case, a Dogged IRS" by Carrick Mollenkamp, Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2009. The IRS is alleging that UBS has been aiding US citizens evade taxes, and it is asking the courts to force UBS to reveal the names of

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-33389932549040177322009-07-10T16:42:00.002-04:002009-07-10T17:04:55.852-04:00

This post is on Why Do Mothers Breastfeed Girls Less Than Boys? Evidence and Implications for Child Health in India by Seema Jayachandran (Stanford University) and Ilyana Kuziemko (Princeton University), NBER Working Paper No. 15041, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15041, June 2009Seema Jayachandran and Ilyana Kuziemko’s answer to the question in their title is that (a) breastfeeding acts as a

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-80780934378553774902009-06-22T13:15:00.002-04:002009-06-22T13:20:09.641-04:00

Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times is on the same them as my post yesterday. Forget the Republicans in Congress -- they were never going to support Obama on anything anyway. Those who want a public option in helath insurance should focus on the so-called "moderate" Dems.

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-67456364472641636992009-06-21T17:19:00.002-04:002009-06-21T17:23:07.939-04:00

Who would've thunk it! After all the incessant and unbearable MSM propaganda excoriating the supposed cluelessness -- if not the outright un-American-ness! -- of Obama's proposal that John and Jane Q. Public should have the option of joining the same sort of public health insurance plan available to their Congresspersons and Senators, today's New York Times provides a Gestalt altering jolt: The

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-75929897904507884612008-08-01T10:50:00.002-04:002008-08-01T11:02:58.033-04:00

Alan Cullison has an interesting report from Afghanistan in today's Wall Street Journal: "Suicide Bombers Tip Afghan War", August 1, 2008. The opening paragraph caught me off guard and made it harder to concentrate on the rest of the article. Here it is:Earlier this year, Hamza turned 20 years old, and without a job or family where he lived in Pakistan, he confided to a friend that he was

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-70095025806420854532008-02-16T20:10:00.002-05:002008-02-16T20:19:11.463-05:00

Economists have always been interested in what philosophers -- especially those writing on political philosophy or distributive ethics -- have to say on what our priorities ought to be. This is not just a concern of those living in -- or those who advise those living in -- the White House, or 10 Downing Street, or the Elysee Palace. Anyone with a little bit of cash left over for charity might

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-40543653893354878602008-02-01T17:08:00.000-05:002008-02-02T18:26:03.611-05:00

The Guardian, a highly respected left-of-center British newspaper, still has on its Web site an uncorrected report about Hugo Chavez's notorious speech at the UN in September 2006, during which he had held up a copy of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival and recommended it to the audience. Towards the end of the report, Rory Carroll writes: Last week the former paratrooper lamented not meeting

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-90743810136972304022008-02-01T16:15:00.000-05:002008-02-01T16:21:25.666-05:00

If you haven't done so yet, please read After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton, By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr., in yesterday's The New York Times. In September 2005, Clinton accompanied a Canadian businessman named Frank Giustra to a meeting with Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's president-for-life. Nazarbayev's brutal suppression of dissent notwithstanding, Bill was positively

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-44329717588582453702007-02-27T13:28:00.000-05:002007-02-27T14:03:47.649-05:00

Murky WaterLiberal people in the West and elsewhere are often justifiably critical of the unfair treatment of women in some Muslim societies. But the even more egregious unfairness towards women in the Hindu societies of India has not provoked proportionately vocal censure. Deepa Mehta’s recent film Water, which was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar but lost, could help to remind

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1170025454061859332007-01-28T18:04:00.000-05:002008-02-02T18:43:38.513-05:00

Let’s say you have come upon some money and would like to invest it. You may be thinking that you are in need of professional advice. You may be thinking that if you need professional help to get the sink unclogged, you’d certainly need a certified financial analyst to make sure that you don’t flush your money down your recently unclogged drain.With all due respect, I am here to tell you that you

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1146879481463214552006-05-05T21:38:00.000-04:002006-05-06T12:57:22.400-04:00

I saw Spike Lee’s new film Inside Man this Tuesday (May 2, 2006). I had read reviews of the film by the critics Anthony Lane and Roger Ebert and they had alerted me to two inconsistencies in the script by newcomer Russell Gewirtz. It is always fun to look for dumb mistakes in plot-heavy movies and I managed to find a few that neither Lane nor Ebert had mentioned. I then went to imdb.com to see if

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1146532796813584532006-05-01T21:15:00.000-04:002006-05-01T21:19:56.826-04:00

The comedian Stephen Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, on Saturday, April 29, was easily the high point of the evening. But the press coverage the next day essentially ignored it and focused only on the pre-Colbert stuff. Standing just a few feet away from George W. Bush, Colbert let loose with one lacerating attack on Bush’s policies after another. What made

Udayannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1145406327493315372006-04-18T20:25:00.000-04:002006-04-18T20:32:44.570-04:00

Last Sunday (April 16), I saw "Japanese Story", a 2003 film by the Australian director Sue Brooks, on DVD. Toni Colette plays Sandy Edwards, a geologist who works for a coal mining company, recently purchased by the Japanese. The Head Office sends over Hiromitsu, a young sarariman, to familiarize himself with the new acquisition and Sandy is told to pick him up at the airport and drive him to the

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1128377207004463572005-10-03T18:06:00.000-04:002005-10-04T22:48:08.193-04:00

When public sector employees in India go on strike, they create economic disruption on a scale proportional to the importance of the public sector. Consider the days when Indian Airlines, a public sector carrier, was the sole domestic airline. A strike by its workers would—just like that!—shut down all air transport in India. Even today, despite the presence of some private airlines, a strike at

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1128213691132947352005-10-01T20:41:00.000-04:002005-10-01T20:45:39.793-04:00

Returning to the recent strike in India that I discussed briefly in my last entry, let’s consider the demands of the strikers. According to the PTI report that I mentioned in my last entry, some of the reasons given for the strike are:The current UPA government’s proposals to sell some of its shares in certain public sector companiesProposed “dilution” of a law by which any firm with 100 or more

Udayannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1128125128566370432005-09-30T20:05:00.000-04:002005-09-30T20:25:36.876-04:00

Today, I will discuss a general strike that took place in India on Thursday, September 29, 2005. American readers may find in this discussion of the Indian labor landscape yet another reason to consider themselves lucky to be American.Here are the lead paragraphs of a Press Trust of India report on the strike:Industrial and commercial activities as also air services were affected in largeparts of

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1124496421785050682005-08-19T20:07:00.000-04:002005-08-19T20:37:05.263-04:00

In spite of the best efforts of Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs and U2’s Bono, the idea of using foreign aid to help poor countries keeps taking it on the chin. And it is not just the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Republicans either; academic economists—other than Sachs—haven’t lately found anything nice to say about foreign aid. (Academics can be pretty snarky; which is why I should

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-1086694114617282622004-06-08T07:27:00.000-04:002004-06-08T07:28:34.616-04:00

It's Tuesday, June 8, 2004. I am trying to transfer my blog to a new server. Let's see if it works.

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-797547202002-08-02T19:58:00.000-04:002002-08-05T18:30:07.000-04:00

I am a college professor. We are supposed to do research from time to time and get it published. Collaboration is a pretty significant part of the way all this research gets done. But it is also a deeply vexing issue for many researchers who have attempted collaborations. Egos get bruised. People feel that they have been had, cheated, duped, etc. What follows is my take on my most recent

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-780015702002-06-20T19:59:00.000-04:002002-06-20T20:03:40.000-04:00

I am depressed. Late last night, as I sat on the floor of my apartment vacantly watching Politically Incorrect, I had this sudden urge to finish off this huge movie theatre-sized bar of milk chocolate that I knew was sitting in the fridge. I couldn’t have been the least bit hungry. I had had my standard dinner of instant noodles cooked together with some frozen vegetables, plus some ice cream for

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-778680912002-06-17T20:55:00.000-04:002002-06-17T20:55:56.750-04:00

I am reading "Blinded by the Right" by David Brock. It is an incredibly disturbing book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who holds the American political system and the American media in high regard.

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3392750.post-107644972002-03-15T10:20:00.000-05:002002-03-22T10:21:25.000-05:00

This is my second web log entry. The first one did not show up!

Udayannoreply@blogger.com0