Ideas of India

Written by: Mercatus Center at George Mason University
  • Summary

  • Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.
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Episodes
  • 2024 in Review
    Dec 26 2024

    Today the roles are reversed. Producer Dallas Floer interviews Shruti for the annual end of year episode where they look back at key themes and episodes from the past year, address listener questions, discuss the job market series, and share some questions from previous guests.

    On behalf of Shruti and the entire Ideas of India team, thank you for listening to the podcast this year. We’re excited to bring you more episodes in 2025.

    Recorded November 26th, 2024.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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    Timestamps

    (00:00:00) - Intro

    (00:01:23) - Listener Questions

    (00:02:27) - Essential readings on the Indian economy

    (00:04:19) - The economy of eastern India from 1970 to today

    (00:06:18) - Achieving a “Developed India”

    (00:09:20) - Alternate paths for economic students

    (00:014:56) - Suggested dissertation topics for PhD students

    (00:18:57) - Revising stances on COVID shutdowns

    (00:24:42) - Problematic TV news programs in India

    (00:27:57) - Predicting the economic impact of AI

    (00:30:11) - The South Korean chaebol model

    (00:38:24) - Karthik Muralidharan: reimagining state capacity

    (00:41:02) - Aparna Chandra: institutional checks on judicial bias

    (00:44:03) - Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton: critical reforms to maintain growth

    (00:47:29) - Ruchir Sharma: the state of American capitalism

    (00:51:00) - The Job Market Series

    (00:54:01) - Questions from Past Guests

    (00:56:59) - Shifting stances on schooling and drugs

    (01:02:11) - Law and economics

    (01:05:36) - “Home” when living in many cultures

    (01:09:44) - Next up for The 1991 Project

    (01:11:31) - Personal goals for 2025

    (01:16:26) - Thanks and Good Wishes

    (01:18:29) - Outro

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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • Pravin Krishna on the Political Economy of Multilateral and Preferential Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, and the Future of Global Trade
    Dec 5 2024

    Today my guest is Pravin Krishna is the Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University, at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Department of Economics. We talked about history of preferential trade agreements, India’s approach to trade liberalization, whether such agreements are trade creating or diverting, and much more.

    Recorded November 12th, 2024.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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    Timestamps

    (00:00:00) - Intro

    (00:00:59) - Essential Components of the Postwar Multilateral Trade System

    (00:04:38) - India’s Role in the GATT and the Special Status of Developing Countries

    (00:06:31) - India in the Global Trade System After 1991

    (00:09:10) - The Decline of the WTO and New Trade Dynamics

    (00:17:45) - Understanding the Small Percentages of Preferential Trade

    (00:20:19) - Indian Trade Liberalization and Alliances from 2010–2020

    (00:26:18) - Viner: Trade Creation and Trade Diversion

    (00:33:35) - More Optimistic View of Equilibrium

    (00:38:46) - Foreign Lobbies in Domestic Markets

    (00:49:3) - Just pick a number

    (00:55:21) - The Impact of Trade Liberalization

    (01:04:05) - Labor Elasticity in Relation to Trade Openness

    (01:11:17) - Predicting the Near Future Impact of U.S. Trade Tariffs

    (01:19:52) - How the New Administration’s Plans Might Impact India

    (01:25:58) - Future Trade Relations Between India and China

    (01:30:52) - Outro

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    1 hr and 32 mins
  • Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data
    Nov 21 2024

    Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app.

    I spoke with Deepti Sharma, who's an Assistant Professor at Ahmedabad University. She completed her PhD in public policy from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Management of Health Services at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Her current research focus is empirical methods, applied microeconomics, public health and gender studies. We discussed her job market paper, Does it matter who you ask for Time Use Data? We talked about the systematic bias in proxy reporting when compared to self-reporting in time use surveys, some techniques used to fix those biases, the gendered nature of these biases, policy implications of using these time use surveys and much more.

    Recorded September 12th, 2024.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

    Connect with Ideas of India

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    Follow Shruti on X

    Follow Deepti on X

    Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

    Timestamps

    (00:00:00) - Intro

    (00:01:12) - Grand Tamasha

    (00:02:42) - Proxy-Reporting Versus Self-Reporting in Time-Use Surveys

    (00:07:16) - Gender Bias and Systematic Bias in Proxy-Reported Data

    (00:10:27) - How Cultural Norms and Gender Perceptions Shape Reporting

    (00:16:59) - Challenges in Collecting Accurate Time-Use Data

    (00:19:34) - Methodological Approaches to Working with Proxy-Reported Data

    (00:24:43) - Suggested Approaches to Conducting Time-Use Surveys

    (00:31:21) - Impact of Climate Change on Gendered Agricultural Work

    (00:33:17) - Hysterectomy Rates and Health Insurance Policies in India

    (00:36:03) - Outro

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    37 mins

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