Jayati Ghosh’s Blog

The Doing Business controversy has shaken the confidence in the Bretton Wood institutions, but it must not obscure the real problems with their functioning - the disproportionate power of the US; the IMF’s deeply procyclical approach to countries that seek its support, and the G7 advanced economies’ unwillingness to address global problems. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on October 12, 2021)

Jayati Ghosh delivered the keynote address at the Group of 78 conference and discussed reforms to the global economic architecture, that are urgently needed to mobilize the necessary resources for adaptation in the developing world.

The trade-and-technology war between the US and China effectively began in 2018. On  July 6, 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese imports of around $34 billion, and further tariffs in 2018 and 2019—claiming that trade between US and China had been unfairly skewed in China’s favour and needed to be rebalanced. The ostensible reason put forward was the persistence of what were called “unfair trade practices” and “technology theft” by China. Thereafter, the trade war has continued into the administration of President Biden, and morphed into a technology war, which is probably…

Climate change is posing immediate threats to humanity, and indeed to all living organisms on the planet, in extreme weather events across the globe. Other environmental stresses include rising water levels or falling water tables, desertification and salination. Agriculture—especially industrial agriculture requiring chemical inputs—is cause and victim of these changes. Cultivation patterns such as mono-cropping, with heavy reliance on groundwater and chemical inputs, have reduced the food sovereignty of poor countries and generated growing environmental problems. These, along with the impact of climate change, have affected food security and caused more severe and widespread hunger, so that the number of…

Capitalism is supposed to be all about economic growth, through the dynamism that is created by competition. This growth is meant to be driven by investment (or accumulation) which in turn is used to justify the shares of national income that are delivered to private profits, to the owners of capital. “Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets” famously said a certain Karl Marx in the first volume of Capital more than 150 years ago. It is undeniable that investment is the fundamental driving force of capitalism. Of course, there have been and continue to be many naysayers, who…

In this article, Jayati Ghosh attempts to extend Krishna Bharadwaj’s insight on interlinked rural markets to the analysis of the interlinkages between paid and unpaid economic activities; in other words, between work and employment. Specifically, Jayati Ghosh argues that the gendered division of labour in India creates much greater involvement in unpaid labour for women, which in turn has direct and pervasive implications for their involvement in paid employment. Indeed, the interlinkage between the two is so profound that it is impossible to understand trends in one without assessing trends in the other. Click here for full article (This article…

Spare a thought for finance ministers and central bankers in the developing world. They probably heaved sighs of relief when the U.S. Federal Reserve decided against raising interest rates at its latest meeting on July 28. Yet they know that the reprieve is only temporary. Even though the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus could slow down the economic recovery, the relevant question is not if the Fed will tighten U.S. monetary policy, but when. When that happens, it will inevitably add to the current woes of emerging markets, which are already severe and complicated. Over past decades, these countries…

Moderated by Dani Rodrik (Harvard) Panelists: Claudio Ferraz (UBC and PUC-Rio) Jayati Ghosh (UMass Boston) Arjun Jayadev (Azim Premji University and INET) Leonard Wantchekon (Princeton and African School of Economics) This is the first in a series of online conversations. For more details, visit: http://www.iea-world.org/activities/diversifying-economics-globally/discussion-panels/

Chair: Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) Speakers: Kaushik Basu (Cornell University) Dani Rodrik (Harvard University) Jayati Ghosh (University of Massachusetts) Rohinton Medhora (CIGI)