Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.
Pravin Krishna on the Political Economy of Multilateral and Preferential Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, and the Future of Global Trade
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. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Pravin on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. 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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1:31:41
Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data
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 Follow us on X 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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36:48
Kushagr Bakshi on Constitutional Interpretation and the Transformation of Federalism
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Kushagr Bakshi is a Michigan International and Comparative Law Scholar and an SJD candidate at the University of Michigan Law School, where he also received his LLM. He received his first law degree from NUJS in West Bengal. We discussed a chapter of his dissertation called “The Country Without a Post Office: Jammu and Kashmir and the Imaginations of Freedom Within a Federation. We talked about assymetrical federalism versus hetererarchy, constitutional values and imagination for federalism in India, and much more. Recorded October 24th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Kushagr on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:06) - Grand Tamasha (00:04:12) - Asymmetric Versus Heterarchical Federalism (00:19:37) - Isn’t this Asymmetric Federalism? (00:31:39) - Democracy in Local Governments (00:43:27) - Rethinking the Rajya Sabha (00:53:30) - Outro
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54:17
Aarushi Kalra on Digital Polarization and Toxicity, Understanding User Behavior, Social Media Algorithms, and Platform Incentives
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Aarushi Kalra Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Brown University. We discussed her job market paper, “Hate in the Time of Algorithms: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment on Online Behavior.” We talked about the demand and supply of toxicity against minorities on social media platforms, user behavior, platform behavior, real world segregation due to ethnic violence, and much more. Recorded October 24th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Aarushi on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:58) - Grand Tamasha (00:02:31) - Exploring How Social Media Users Engage with Toxic Content (00:06:06) - Understanding the Drivers of Toxic Speech on the Internet (00:08:50) - Definitions of Toxic Content (00:11:05) - Scale of Data and Choice of Language (00:12:23) - Impact of Recommendation Algorithms on User Engagement (00:16:27) - Key Findings on Toxic Content Exposure and Sharing (00:22:08) - Interpreting How Personalization Shapes Engagement in Toxic Social Media Content (00:25:31) - How Recognizing the Agency and Sophistication of Users Shapes Interpretive Models (00:31:45) - The Challenges of Platform Regulation (00:34:04) - The Challenges of Creating Interventions to Address Toxic Content (00:35:46) - Social Media as Normalizing Toxic Speech (00:38:09) - The Route of the Ram Rath Yatra As Lens on Segregation (00:48:58) - Outro
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49:45
Abishek Choutagunta on Federalism, President’s Rule, and Constitutional Design
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Abishek Choutagunta, who received his PhD in economics from the Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg. He is also an EV India fellow at the Mercatus Center. We discussed his paper “President’s Rule in India: State Emergency or Political Capture?” with Christian Bjørnskov, Stefan Voigt, and myself, yes you heard that right. We talked about the Centripetal Federalism in India, state and local government finances, emergency powers, SR Bommai, constitutional design, and much more. Recorded September 6th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Abishek on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:01) - Grand Tamasha (00:02:58) - Article 356 and President’s Rule (00:26:47) - Why are local governments broken in India? (00:46:33) - India is Centripetal in its Federalism (00:53:08) - Outro
Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.