Jayati Ghosh’s Blog

Many analyses of the recent erosion of democracy in India have dwelt on political and social forces. I will examine the role of economic forces unleashed by a particular form of capitalist development, and how they may have contributed to this process in recent decades.

There’s no doubt that the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States sets the stage for further expansion of fossil fuel production in the US, especially of natural gas, of which the US has emerged as the world’s largest producer and exporter. The Ukraine War was a significant catalyst for this, as European countries that were earlier heavily reliant on natural gas from Russia to power their electricity generation desperately sought alternative sources after the US and the EU both imposed sanctions on Russia. Indeed, analysts pointed out at the time that at least two…

Almost half of the global population is affected by the current global debt crisis and some Global South countries are now spending more on debt servicing than health, education and social protection combined. Development economists Jayati Ghosh and Charles Abugre explore its root causes - from the imposition of austerity and structural adjustment policies in the 1980s to the excess liquidity post-2008 financial crisis that resulted in the Bretton Woods institutions encouraging developing countries to borrow from private bond markets. They also highlight the profound effects on people and society. And we hear from a Kenyan barber about how tax…

The latest World Employment and Social Outlook Report (update for September 2024) from the International Labour Organisation highlights some disturbing trends. Importantly, it identifies a significant decline and then stagnation in the share of labour income in GDP, for the world as a whole, in the past few years. This comes as part of a persistent trend of decline in labour income shares, other than spikes in “crisis years” like 2008-10 and 2020-21. (Note that the IO includes income from self-employment as part of the labour share, which is an important point since self-employment is very important, and indeed often…

Sri Lanka’s new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, must reject his predecessor’s recent debt-restructuring deal with the IMF. That agreement would inflict unnecessary pain on Sri Lanka’s population and set a dangerous precedent, undermining other developing economies’ ability to restructure their foreign debts. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka’s president, recently lost his re-election bid after voters overwhelmingly rejected the debt-restructuring deals he negotiated with the International Monetary Fund and other creditors. Instead, Sri Lankans elected Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the left-wing National People’s Power (NPP) alliance and a vocal critic of IMF-imposed austerity measures, who has vowed to renegotiate the country’s agreement with the Fund............. Download…

The recent meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Beijing in the first week of September was an important indicator of a new phase in Africa-China economic relations. These reflect both the changing internal dynamics in China as its economy rebalances towards greater emphasis on domestic consumption and the recent changes in geopolitics that are altering international trade and financial patterns. China’s economic interaction with African countries, especially in the past decade, has been the object of much attention not only within Africa but globally. The rise of China has been hugely significant for the world economy—and…

The latest controversy in the South Asian University, over an interview with a philosopher mentioned in a student’s research proposal that resulted in severe backlash and eventual resignation of an eminent foreign professor, would appear to be ludicrous if it were not so tragic. It culminates several years of decline in a university that began with much loftier ideals. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in The Indian Express on August 22, 2024)

The “demographic dividend” that was so eagerly anticipated in India more than a decade ago has already become a demographic disaster. India’s burgeoning youth population is achieving higher levels of education, and then entering a labour market that simply does not offer productive employment opportunities. So extreme is the employment crisis that the problem goes well beyond that of finding a “good job”—one that is regular, formal and with decent wages and working conditions. It extends to the growing inability to find any source of gainful employment at all, however low-paid and tenuous. This is clearly evident in the desperation…

The popular insurrection that ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government offers important lessons for the international community and neighboring India. While the unrest was undoubtedly fueled by the regime’s repressive and increasingly anti-democratic tactics, exemplified by its brutal crackdown on largely peaceful student protesters, the underlying causes of public discontent are often overlooked. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on August 13, 2024)

In the past three years, global food prices have been on a roller coaster, rising rapidly especially in the first half of 2022 due to a speculative bubble and then falling from July 2022 onwards (Figure 1). The phase of rising food prices led to increasing food prices around the world, especially in lower income countries—and this was obviously associated with growing hunger. According to the FAO, 122 million more people faced hunger in 2022 than in 2019, before the global pandemic. Around 42 per cent of the world’s population—more than 3.1 billion people—were unable to afford a healthy diet…