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World-Watching: India

(from ICRIER Newsletter | November 2019 | Vol. III, Issue 11)

The November 2019 issue of the Newsletter provides a quick recap of ICRIER’s research and policy engagements during the month of October 2019.

Three research reports were released by ICRIER last month in the areas of competition, trade and investment and climate change (See below).

ICRIER also organized consultation workshops, dissemination and outreach events during the month. ICRIER researchers published several articles in leading newspapers and other media platforms on a variety of current issues such as growth, agriculture, trade, FTAs, RCEP, single use plastics and the Economics Nobel. We sincerely hope that you will take a few moments to glance through these updates and engage further with anything that interests you. We hope you enjoy the newsletter’s new format. As always, we welcome your valuable feedback.

Competition Issues in India’s Mobile Handset Industry

(Rajat Kathuria, Mansi Kedia and Kaushambi Bagchi)

Mobile phones have been the key to India’s technology revolution. India is the second largest mobile phone market globally, next only to China. At the end of 2018, the estimated number of smart phone users in India was 337 million, compared to 2.53 billion users worldwide. One would imagine that the exponential increase in cheaper smart phone models would displace the market for feature phones; to the contrary, feature phones continue to dominate the Indian market. While smart phone and feature phone shipments in 2018 Q3 were about the same, a comparison of growth rates shows that both phablets (large screen smartphones) and regular smartphones eclipse feature phones.

Exploring Trade and Investment Opportunities between India and Select African and Asian Economies

(Anirudh Shingal, Neha Gupta, Minakshee Das, Akshaya Aggarwal and Varsha Jain)

Using descriptive statistical analysis, this study examines trade and investment opportunities between India and 41 African and Asian economies (mostly LDCs) by focusing on the latter’s export opportunities in the Indian market and on India’s investment opportunities in the selected countries. It also discusses barriers to realizing the identified trade and investment opportunities between India and the selected economies, based on a review of the existing literature.

Financing Resilience against Natural Disasters

(Saon Ray, Samridhi Jain and Vasundhara Thakur)

Disaster Risk Resilience can be interpreted as global policies working for improving disaster risk reduction. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is the guiding principle for efforts to improve resilience worldwide. This report links the global efforts for disaster risk reduction with resilient infrastructure. The report analyses the applicability of popular instruments for emerging economies, the role of the private sector, and challenges to implementation of resilience framework. It maps the evolution and status of disaster risk financing in India.

ICANN 66 Pre-Meeting Briefing

ICRIER hosted the ICANN 66 Pre-Meeting Briefing on 18th October 2019 for its Indian stakeholders. This edition of the Pre-Meeting Briefing looked closely at the developments between ICANN 65 and ICANN 66 and highlighted some of the key policy discussions currently underway at ICANN. The event witnessed participation from various stakeholders from India, including representatives from the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), National Internet Exchange of India (‘.in’ registry) along with Indian representatives active in various policy development processes at ICANN. ICANN 65 was held in Montreal, Canada, between 2-7 November 2019. ICRIER will also be hosting the ICANN 66 Readout during the first week of December 2019 to highlight some of the key takeaways from ICANN 66.

Dissemination of the India-LDCs Trade and Investment Study

ICRIER organised Dissemination of the Report Exploring Trade and Investment Opportunities between India and Select African and Asian Economies on October 14, 2019 at Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

Welcome remarks were delivered by Dr. Rajat Kathuria, Director & CE, ICRIER and the Introductory Session was Chaired by Dr. Jayant Dasgupta, IAS (Retd.) Former Ambassador of India to the WTO. Dr. Anirudh Shingal, Sr. Fellow, ICRIER presented the key findings of the report, which was followed by a Panel discussion Chaired by Dr. Arpita Mukherjee, Professor, ICRIER.

Market Incentives, Direct Income Support for Farmers are far more Effective in Increasing Agricultural Productivity

(Ashok Gulati, Sakshi Gupta)

Read article [archived PDF]

Cities at Crossroads: Single-use Plastic only Part of the Challenge

(Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Almitra Patel)

Read article [archived PDF]

From Plate to Plough: Agri-Policy Lessons from China

(Ashok Gulati & Sakshi Gupta)

Read article [archived PDF]

Growth, Income, Poverty and the Nobel

(Alok Sheel)

Read article [archived PDF]

Understanding the RCEP with Rajat Kathuria

(Rajat Kathuria)

Listen to podcast [archived MP3 audio] [PDF transcript]

The Five-trillion Math

(Alok Sheel)

Read article [archived PDF]

Has PM-Kisan Belied Expectations?

(Siraj Hussain)

Read article [archived PDF]

How Government Can Control Sudden Spike in Prices of Onion and Tomato

(Ashok Gulati & Harsh Wardhan)

Read article [archived PDF]

Best of Business Standard Opinion: Corporate Tax Cuts, Pollution Challenge…

(Durgesh K. Rai)

Read article [archived PDF]

India’s Trade with its FTA Partners: Experiences, Challenges…

(Durgesh K. Rai)

Read article [archived PDF]

India’s Trade Policy Should Lend an Ear to a Wider Range of Voices

(Ujjwal Krishna & Amrita Saha)

Read article [archived PDF]

Monsoon’s Late Surge Helps, But Floods Hurt Crop Prospects

(Siraj Hussain)

Read article [archived PDF]

World Watching: U.S.-China Tariffs

(from the PIIE Insider)

News and Analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics
November 13, 2019

They Saved the Worst for Last: Why Trump’s Impending December Tariffs on China Should Be Rolled Back

The terms and deadlines of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China are hard to follow, but one thing is clear: American consumers and businesses should welcome a rollback of impending final rounds of China tariffs as part of a possible “phase 1” deal to be announced later in November, say Mary E. Lovely and Yang Liang. Washington has acted against China to punish it for preventing US access to the Chinese market and for violating US intellectual property rights. Beijing is reportedly demanding that impending December tariffs be dropped before they sign any deal. Trump says he hasn’t decided how many tariffs might be lifted.

Key Takeaways

The planned tariffs for December 15 would largely hit products like laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices designed and marketed by multinational firms, mostly with components from the United States and its allies, and assembled in non-Chinese-owned factories.
As a result, the trade war is hurting American manufacturers and US multinational corporations, the very people Trump claims he is helping. Any burden they bear reduces earnings for US-based companies or those of US allies and will do little to motivate Chinese reforms.
An estimated 95.2 percent of computer and electronic products scheduled for new tariffs in December are from multinational enterprises. Rather than placing pressure on the Chinese beneficiaries of misappropriated American technology, the tariffs burden US consumers and the companies where they work.

Read the full story at PIIE [archived PDF].

Emerging Markets: Trade Wars Send Manufacturers Scurrying Back Home…

Financial Times Briefing

EMERGING MARKETS

[subscription required for links]

Trade Wars Send Manufacturers Scurrying Back Home [link]
Economies of China and Germany look exposed as growth shifts

U.S. Companies Stay Cautious on Spending Under Strain of Trade War [link]
Executives signal further pullback in capital expenditure for fourth quarter

Australia: The Campus Fight Over Beijing’s Influence [link]
Clashes between pro- and anti-Hong Kong demonstrators have renewed scrutiny over China’s role in western universities

How To Limit Climate Change: Let the Private Sector Do Its Job [link]
This year’s U.N. climate summit must give business the rulebook it needs

China’s $1tn Scramble for Convertible Bonds Reflects Hot Market [link]
Bidding for new deals including Shanghai Pudong Development Bank stuns investors

Evo Morales Flies to Mexico After Being Granted Political Asylum [link]
Former Bolivian president boards flight as violence erupts following his resignation

Chile’s Stock Market Drops After Proposal To Rewrite Constitution [link]
Investors fear that the move by Sebastián Piñera would undermine the economy

Alibaba Aims To Deliver With $16bn Courier Venture [link]
Chinese ecommerce group follows Amazon in focusing on logistics

Trade Optimism Awaits a Big Test [link]
Mike Mackenzie’s daily analysis of what’s moving global markets

British Co-Founder of White Helmets Found Dead in Istanbul [link]
Investigation launched after body of former army officer James Le Mesurier discovered in street

Arguments Without End: Are They Good or Bad?

The Dutch historian Pieter Geyl (died in 1966) coined the phrase “argument without end” to get at the constant reappearance of old arguments or viewpoints. One gets the impression that arguments are either persistent or perhaps permanent. One simplistic example could be argument about socialism: Sweden is “good,” but Venezuela (or Cuba) is bad. This book takes the view that “arguments without end” are not the end of knowledge but rather a potential beginning: it could be that some issues cannot be captured by one school of thought: the awarding of the 1974 Nobel Prize to both Hayek (“the right”) and Myrdal (“the left”) is an example of this need for hybridity. Both Hayek and Myrdal are each seeing something valid and it’s a “fool’s errand” to decide who is “eternally” correct.

Let’s apply this thinking to a deep “argument without end” within and about history.

Michel Foucault (died in 1984) following Nietzsche, argues that history seems “linear” but is more random and non-linear than the “linear” historians see or admit.

There’s an aphorism in Nietzsche, (from his The Dawn) which Foucault uses…history is made by the “iron-hand of necessity shaking the dice-box of chance.”

In other words the world we know, traveling somehow from the assassination of Kennedy (November 2, 1963) to the impeachment hearings of Trump in October 2019, must be thought of as a kind of “random walk” behind which are trends, cycles, so that one gets a fusion of structure and surprise. If you emphasize surprise you’re closer to Foucault than to those narrative historians who think they can show you the exact threads which connect “then and now.”

Here’s an example of such a historian, the celebrated G.R. Elton of England, whose classic The Tudor Revolution in Government is a masterpiece of orthodox analysis. The book centers on the administrative revolution in the 1530s in England which implied, says Elton, “As regards political and social structure, the sixteenth century produced something quite new in England—the self-contained sovereign state in which no power on earth could challenge the supremacy of statute made by the crown in parliament.”

“In this revolution, in this making of a new kind of state productive of a new kind of society, administrative reforms played their part. It is against this background of controlled upheaval that they must be seen and understood.”

(Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government, Cambridge University press, 1966, page 426/427)

Orthodox historians see history as a “nail-down-able” system of storylines and the controlled upheavals have a direction (teleology) which allows you to use—in this case the 1530s in England—as a beginning, an origin, a “datum line,” and once you have this clear starting point you can follow the story to now and include comparative developments in France or Germany or China.

The orthodox “explain strategy” starts with an origin, a “starting gate” like a horse-race.

The Foucault–Nietzsche view is that these starting points are not entirely useless but in the end don’t help you because history is in the end governed by “the dice-box of chance” even if it is held by “the iron-hand of necessity.” History is more “upheaval” than “control” more surprise than structure. “Determinism” such as perhaps based by pinning down a starting point from which one can “build out,” is a wish-dream since history is nonlinear and nondeterministic. Even Elton’s phrase “controlled upheaval” is full of questions and problems.

Modern “complexity theory” in mathematics tries to get at these differences analytically. A “meta-intelligent” student would go from this historians’ “argument without end” to the analysis of complexity in math as a way of rounding out the exploration.

An “argument without end” can thus be useful if the student does not insist on some final “apodictic” or certain-forever answer.