Leading Issues in Economics

The elective will acquaint students with the principal issues and debates in the international and Indian economy. These include economic globalisation and its implications for international inequality; the role of international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation in the current context; the factors that explain the liberalisation wave in the less developed world in general and India in particular; the redefinition of the economic role of the state in the new context, and its consequences in the form of the new monetarism and privatisation; and the implications of these developments for growth, poverty, and the quality of life in India and elsewhere.

Students will be familiarised with the essential identities used in macroeconomic studies and the basic concepts underlying national income, and budgetary and balance of payments analysis. Selected issues at a sectoral level such as the impact of trade liberalisation, the effect of land ownership structures on the nature of agricultural growth, and the effect of economic reform on food security will also be discussed.

Students will be exposed to the principal data sources on the Indian and world economy, to simple statistical techniques used in the analysis of such data, and to the essential elements of the theories that underlie contemporary policy debates.