Jayati Ghosh’s Blog

For a while this spring, it seemed – at least to European residents – that the vaccine nationalism that had led European governments to procure vaccines that had been rapidly produced with government support and fast-tracked official approval, had paid off. Growing numbers of people were vaccinated against the Covid-19 infections and countries began to open and ease the restrictions in place over the past year. However: the virus can only be stopped when everybody is safe – not only Europeans. But that optimism has been short-lived as new delta and kappa variants of the coronavirus spread across the continent…

International observers still view Asia—and particularly East Asia—as the most dynamic economic region in the world, a perception that has been even more entrenched over the period of the pandemic. Certainly, if aggregate GDP growth rates in real terms (as shown in Figure 1) are anything to go by, there is no doubt that the region of East Asia has been growing faster than the world as a whole, and has even managed to maintain positive growth in the pandemic year 2020, when most other regions have stumbled or even collapsed. By contrast, South Asia, which earlier showed higher growth…

The tax proposal decided at the G7 Finance Ministers’ meeting last weekend has been hailed as ‘historic’ and ‘transformative’. But in its present form, it is, unfortunately, neither. Major changes can and should be made — at least by the G20 where this will next be considered — if there is to be any serious global tax reform. The proposal is based on the recognition that the international tax architecture, designed for an earlier and very different era, contains anomalies that enable multinational companies (MNCs) to avoid paying the same rate of taxes that local companies pay. They do this…

When the pandemic first swept across the globe and destroyed economies in its wake, there were at least some expressions of international solidarity among leaders of the rich countries. External debt problems were widely recognised to be inevitable in the new crisis context; to address them, G20 governments declared a Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) from May 2020, designed to reduce some of the immediate debt repayment burden of the poorest and most vulnerable economies. Yet this and the subsequent “Common Framework for Debt Treatments” of November 2020 barely scratched the surface of the problem, and are unlikely to fend…

The disease ripping through the country is only one of the destructive forces affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians. The dramatic increase in hunger is another. Like devastation wrought by the current surge in coronavirus infections, this too is the result of policy failure and official callousness. It is already causing immense suffering among affected people and will have serious repercussions on their future health and physical resilience. Everyone knows that the brutal national lockdown imposed in March 2020 and the subsequent economic collapse led to loss of livelihood among people who had little or no ability…

The Biden administration’s decision to stop opposing a proposed COVID-19 waiver of certain intellectual-property rights under World Trade Organization rules is a welcome move. But ending the pandemic also requires scaling up knowledge and technology transfer, as well as public production of vaccine supplies. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on May 7, 2021)

The unfolding pandemic horror in India has many causes. These include the complacency, inaction and irresponsibility of government leaders, even when it was evident for several months that a fresh wave of infections of new mutant variants threatened the population. Continued massive election rallies, many addressed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, brought large numbers to congested gatherings and lulled many into underplaying the threat of infection. The incomprehensible decision to allow a major Hindu religious festival the Mahakumbh Mela, held every 12 years—to be brought forward by a full year, on the advice of some astrologers, brought millions from across India…

The By-invitation section publishes commentaries from a range of perspectives. For a view in favour of maintaining intellectual property rights related to covid and health, read a commentary by Michelle McMurry-Heath. The Rapid creation of covid-19 vaccines is an amazing technological feat. It shows how much can be accomplished when human inventiveness and private-sector involvement are given extensive public support, from basic research to massive subsidies. However, the innovation is futile unless the vaccines are distributed equitably. The public-health benefits are undermined by a deepening chasm in availability. With most inoculations occurring in just a few rich countries and the vast majority of…

In an important new paper (“External balance sheets of emerging economies: low-yielding assets, high-yielding liabilities”, Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 9 No. 2, Summer 2021, pp. 232–252) the Turkish economist Yilmaz Akyuz has identified new channels of transmission of global financial shocks resulting from open capital accounts in emerging markets, which have led to “sizeable wealth transfers between emerging and advanced economies. They have also resulted in significant income transfers in view of negative yield differentials between their gross external assets and liabilities.” In India’s case, Akyuz estimates that between 2000 and 2016, gross foreign assets (claims that Indian residents…

While the United States and other advanced economies rush to vaccinate their populations and gear up for post-pandemic booms, developing countries and emerging economies continue to struggle. Fortunately, rich countries could help everyone else – and themselves – at little to no cost. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on March 24, 2021)