ET2000 ⁽¹⁴⁾

In a recent report entitled Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards (August 31, 2000), Human Rights Watch offers a stunning indictment of the laws governing worker rights and their enforcement in the United States. Economic Times, December 20 2000 In a recent report entitled Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards (August 31, 2000), Human Rights Watch offers a stunning indictment of the laws governing worker rights and their enforcement in the United States. Based on systematic field research in California, Florida, Michigan, New York and numerous other states, the report offers an unusual window to the violations of worker rights that happen routinely in the country. The report also reveals a danger underlying the proposed link between trade and labor rights that has not been recognized to-date: the link may lead to trade wars between developing and developed countries in which each accuses the other of violations of labor rights. But consider first the assessment of the laws themselves as presented in the report.

Mathematician Stanislaw Ulam once asked economics Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson whether he could point to an idea in economics that was universally true and not obvious at the same time. Samuelson’s response was the “principle of comparative advantage.” Economic Times November 22 2000 Mathematician Stanislaw Ulam once asked economics Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson whether he could point to an idea in economics that was universally true and not obvious at the same time. Samuelson’s response was the “principle of comparative advantage,” according to which two countries necessarily benefit from engaging in free trade with each other provided their relative production costs are not identical. Being based on a mathematical relationship, the principle easily passes the test of universal validity. And centuries of assertions by politicians, journalists and policy analysts directly contradicting the principle testify to its subtle nature. If you are among free-trade sceptics, consider the following parable. During the 1970s, a trade economist was invited to visit China. As he toured the country, he noticed that construction workers invariably used shovels. He could not resist suggesting to his host…

We persist in ignoring the lessons of our own experience and stand ready to punish the consumer in favour of narrow, short-term industry interests. By all accounts, the government is poised to replace import licensing on used cars by prohibitive tariff duties and technical barriers. Economic Times October 25 2000 It was with much apprehension and fear that India lifted import controls on 714 consumer goods on March 31, 2000, following a WTO ruling. The messiahs of doom had predicted that imports would flood the markets and destroy the local consumer goods industry. But as the Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran explained in a recent interview published in the Economic Times (October 14), the “Apprehensions about surge in imports are misplaced.” Non-oil imports grew a paltry 2.78 per cent during April-August 2000. “This is definitely not a surge,” noted the minister boldly. This experience is a part of the now familiar pattern around the world to which India is no exception: greater openness benefits not just the consumer but industry as well. With liberalization, India has not only accelerated its growth rate but also…

The statistical techniques of measurement, for which Heckman and McFadden have been awarded the prize, may seem esoteric to a non-specialist. Yet, they are an indispensable part of the tool-kit of an empirical economist. Economic Times, October 18 2000. Heckman and McFadden: Revolutionaries in Empirical Microeconomics If you wanted to predict the Nobel Prize winners, your best bet would be to look among the winners of the John Bates Clark Medal. Starting with Paul Samuelson in 1947, this medal has been awarded every other year (except 1953) to the most outstanding American economist under forty. Of the first seven winners of the medal, six—Samuelson, Milton Friedman, James Tobin, Kenneth Arrow, Lawrence Klein and Robert Solow—became early recipients of the Nobel Prize. James Heckman of the University of Chicago and Daniel McFadden of the University of California, Berkeley, the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize, are both recipients of the Clark Medal: Heckman in 1983 and McFadden in 1975. Thus, there is little surprise in the fact that they have been awarded the coveted prize. The surprise lies, instead, in the…

(Full text and external link unavailable) Since politicians usually lack specialized skills, the burden of policy making often falls on the top layer of bureaucracy. But what if top bureaucrats themselves lack these skills? We then run the risk of blind leading the blind.