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Showing posts with the label geo politics

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

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  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra
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Geopolitics of Electric Vehicles

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At the dawn of 2020, India seems to be on a trajectory to switch to electric vehicles for mobility. Unarguably, mobility both intra city and inter-city pose huge challenges for policy makers. For centuries, mobility was essentially a function of the speed of human legs and animals. Machine power touched mobility solutions only in the last two centuries or so. Horse drawn trams were all over New York even 120 years ago till the car took over. The IC engine transfigured the mobility across the world. Personal mobility as distinct from public travel got a new spur. Fascinatingly, the early cars were more electric than fuel based. Large scale discoveries of oil in the Gulf at the dawn of the 20 th century in addition to the reserves in the US led to an era of cheap fuel. Private ownership of cars began to increase, US in particular. Increased competition supplemented by innovation and price drops enabled the virtuous cycle in automobile industry. Distinctive to car as theme
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Calendronomics

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It would be stimulating to decrypt how January 1 st became the first day of the New Year across the world. There are perhaps more than 500 calendars across various cultures. Yet it was the Gregorian calendar that has emerged as the standard calendar across the world. While the roots of Gregorian calendar is religious, its adoption is pure geo-political economics. The calendar was issued as a correction to the then existing Julian calendar in Europe. The reform was an answer to solving the ‘Easter’ problem. Easter, as adopted by First Council of Nicea (325 AD) is celebrated on the Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, which was adopted as approximation to the March equinox. The passage of time and the semantics of Julian calendar had led to divergence between the canonical date of equinox and the observed reality. Hence by early 16 th century, there were calls for reforms in calendar accompanied by ensuring that dates do not diverge in the future. This
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