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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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India's Vaccination Drive: What Next?

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  India seems to have seen the worst off the second wave of the Chinese pandemic. In cities like Delhi, the pandemic seems to have abated with the same pace in which it materialized in April. It is perhaps a mystery on the behavior of the pandemic in terms of its spread and consequent contraction in an equally swift time. While the country is recovering slowly from the pandemic, the vaccination program seems to be picking some pace. The recovery from the pandemic might be slow given the convexities involved, the pact of vaccination would determine the pace of recovery. If the vaccination pace is high, the chances of breakthrough infections and consequent mutations might decrease. In fact, it is in the global self-interest that the vaccination be carried out at a very fast pace. The global vaccination programs are still subject to the geopolitics and protectionism, despite the US announcing lifting of barriers in terms of supply of vaccine raw materials as also with export of excess vac
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CBSE Exams, Chinese Pandemic and Indian Education

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  The second wave of the pandemic induced by the Chinese virus seem to be abating in the country, yet the toll it has taken seems to be manifesting in multiple ways. It is not just the people who have died but the livelihoods it has destroyed might take years to recover. The livelihoods destroyed are both on account of death of family members, breadwinners, kids losing either one or both parents, the loss of jobs induced by the lockdowns, the drop in demand for many goods impacting the production of the goods among many other things. Many skilled and unskilled workers are left hunting for jobs with little sight to their end in misery. Away from this the children have lost their childhood. Kept confined to their homes, they might grow very different in social experiences away from the elders. They are not able to enjoy the natural role of playing and meeting with friends. Furthermore, their education has been disrupted. The schools are closed and thus the learning is almost nil. There a
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Naming Railway Stations

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  There is invariably a controversy when something is named. This something could be an airport, a port, a railway station, a bus stand, a street, a road, a dam, an educational institute, a waterway, a sanctuary or a zoo, an university or maybe countless other things. These things invariably get named after prominent personalities or institutions. The criteria is usually someone big associated with the ruling party of the day. There was no surprise when anything and everything was named or renamed after the Nehru-Gandhi family during the Congress rule. The Connaught Place was named Rajiv Chowk, there was the Hyderabad airport which was named after Rajiv Gandhi, there was a sea link between Bandra and Worli in Mumbai that was named after Rajiv Gandhi. Similarly, there did arise issues when the current government named Mughalsarai station as Deen Dayal Nagar. It is not the railway stations were not named before. Mumbai VT was renamed as Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus whereas the new
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Marginal Productivity of Labour and Wages : A Note

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In economics, there is a considerable interest and natural one at that about the wages. There is a question about the ideal wages that an employee would secure. Karl Marx had posited that the labour produce the goods yet it is the capitalists who appropriate all the profit. In Marx’s words, if a shoe were to cost to produce $1 and a labour produces four shoes in an hour, he would have produced the output equivalent to $4. Yet while the capitalist would gain a revenue of $4, he would at best let’s say given $1 to the labour. Assuming the fixed costs and non-labour costs to be $1, the capitalist still makes a profit of $2. This in the long run would lead to income disparities and become a cause for the revolution. The Marxian theory was later criticized on the grounds of human capital theory. In the past, the posts have sought to link for instance Smiley Curve with the Marxian propositions. Marx did face a challenge from what was emergent as the neo-classical theory. The neo-classicalist
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Lakshadweep Connundrum

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  Lakshadweep is the smallest Union Territory in terms of population but is now in the news for perhaps wrong reasons. The islands are strategically important given their location. The island is predominantly Islamic with more than 97% of the population following the religion. The island was relatively free of COVID-19 cases till early this year before the explosion took place. This is primarily attributed to the dependency on Kerala from where most of the goods are procured of. To add, the increased tourists would have added to the number of cases. Historically, the territory has remained sort of isolated from the rest of the country. The tribals were generally Buddhist followers before they were sort of Arabized. Islam followed later as an outcome of Arabization. The influence could very well been an outcome of it being strategic maritime location. The linkage with Maldives too existed in some ways especially with the island of Minicoy. Minicoy during the British days came under the
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Archeo-Astronomy- A Note

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  To many history might appear boring, yet it is equally fascinating to a number of others. History is about the past. Yet history teaches us about the present and the future. History is about learning the right lessons. History often repeats itself as a farce often as a tragedy. Avoiding this tragedy is something that becomes critical. It is about regressing the past towards forecasting the future. In quantitative methods, regression is a standard tool to understand the future through the past correlations. History too is about building correlations of the past to project the future. History of course differs from statistical tools in terms of its qualitative and often subjective analysis. History is about decoding the conditions that existed resulting in a war for instance. If a war were to be a dependent variable, then the question would be about those independent variables as also the interaction variables while controlling for certain variables that determined the trajectory of th
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Indian Vaccine Story

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  The vaccination process in India continues to fumble on. The process had begun relatively smooth but soon encountered troubles partly due to the vaccine hesitancy thus certain wastage coupled with the second wave of the Wuhan pandemic which devastated urban and the rural alike. It was aggravated by the shortage of vaccines. India had approved two vaccines, yet their supply was limited and could not be scaled up. While the Covishield being marketed by Serum Institute, but developed by Oxford and Astra Zeneca, was also to be exported to meet its global commitments the Covaxin developed by the domestic vaccine producer Bharat Biotech could not be scaled up because of technical issues. The Sputnik, developed by Russian scientists and marketed by Dr. Reddy’s Labs too is facing issues of manufacturing, which is likely to start in a month or so.   There was no doubt as mentioned in the previous columns too that the government strategy on vaccines lacked homework. There has been a talk a
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