tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70169647893882279412024-03-14T03:50:34.260-04:00VIVEK DEHEJIAWelcome to my webpage. I'm associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Here, you'll find links to my academic and public writings, videos, and other items that I hope you'll find interesting. You can reach me at vdehejia[at]gmail[dot]com, on Twitter @vdehejia, or on Instagram @vd9122 .Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.comBlogger698125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-14805433416375465512023-07-29T12:22:00.002-04:002023-07-29T22:00:26.234-04:00The "Moberly-Raeburn" ordering in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro", and a few observations on the Salzburg Festival 2023 production<p> I had the opportunity to watch a livestream of the new "Figaro" production at the Salzburg Festival and will be seeing the performance in person next weekend.</p><p>A few quick observations on this new production. The director's conception, and the sets and state design, are edgy and modern -- far darker than Barrie Kosky's new production in Vienna, which I posted about some time back. In fact, the new Salzburg production is so dark it makes Kosky's look almost traditional by comparison.</p><p>The Vienna Philharmonic is stubbornly traditionalist in how they play Mozart (and the rest of their core repertoire). I was fascinating to see and hear to what extent a "HIP" conductor, in this case Raphaël Pichon, would be able to bend the orchestra to his will. In the end, it was a reasonable compromise, much like the new Mozart/Da Ponte productions at the Vienna State Opera, with the same orchestra, wearing their hats as the opera orchestra. In Vienna, outgoing music director Philippe Jordan conducts from the fortepiano, but does not join the musical numbers from the instrument. In Salzburg, Pichon has a separate fortepiano continuo, who contributes to the musical numbers. This being the VPO, there are no concessions to period brass or timpani -- although, arguably, the Viennese timpani currently in use by the VPO, which have goatskin parchments and manual tuning screws, are somewhat larger descendants of Classical era timps.</p><p>What I found a little problematic were the substantial cuts to the secco recitatives. There really is no need to do this, and the recits in the Mozart/Da Ponte operas are crucially important to plot advancement. Some of the recits are indeed long, and they're important. This production chose to foreshorten some of them considerably. Most notably, a crucial bit of recitative before the Count-Susanna duet in Act III was cut. The production suggested that the relationship just prior to the duet was (possibly?) consummated, which would seem to make nonsense of the Count's continued desire to meet Susanna in the garden. Of course, I may have misread this.</p><p>More troubling were actual and gratuitous changes to the text of the libretto. I couldn't pick up on all of them at one listening in a livestream, but, for instance, in Bartolo's Act I aria, "Siviglia" was replaced by "la terra". There were I believe a few other instances. Also, the English translation in the Medici livestream had very peculiar translations. Where "Conte", for instance, appeared in the libretto, it was rendered "Almaviva". It appeared to be an attempt to strip away the class dimension of the opera, which again seems strange.</p><p>Having said which, I look forward to seeing this in person in Salzburg, and perhaps I'll have a richer and deeper understanding of the director's intention that was possible on a livestream.</p><p>The production omits the Marcellina and Basilio arias in Act IV, which is a frequently made theatrical cut, but is regrettable. More interesting was its use of the "Moberly-Raeburn" ordering of the numbers in Act III. The conventional ordering, used in most productions and recordings, has the Countess's recitative and aria following the "recognition" sextet. M&R proposed in, a 1965 article which you can find <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/732624">here</a>, that the correct ordering should place the Countess's aria after the Count's aria and before the sextet.</p><p>I don't want to get into all the detail here, but they have two main reasons for this view, which are related. First, at the premiere in Vienna on May 1, 1786, Antonio and Curzio were taken by the same singer. This means that, with M&R's preferred ordering, there wouldn't be enough time for the singer to change between the recognition sextet and the next scene, in which Antonio appears. They also argue that their preferred ordering makes greater dramatic sense. I happen to agree, but not everyone does. Please see their article for the detailed reasoning (the article is very short). They conclude, therefore, that Mozart and Da Ponte were forced to change the ordering at the last minute to accommodate the presumably unforeseen fact that one singer would double Antonio and Curzio. The article concludes: "If a piece of a jig-saw fits well in one place, and badly in another place, one does not assume that the jig-saw designer meant it to fit badly. The evidence of the score may, for once, be illusory."</p><p> The M&R article appeared in 1965 and proved influential. For instance, in the celebrated Karajan recording of the opera with the Vienna Philharmonic, he uses the M&R ordering, not the conventional ordering.</p><p>The one difficulty with the M&R argument -- and it's a big one -- is that they really present no compelling evidence that their ordering is what Mozart actually intended. Their evidence is circumstantial: a role got doubled, necessitating the change, and their preferred ordering makes more sense. But this isn't by itself convincing proof.</p><p>In 1981, Alan Tyson wrote an article based on his analysis of the paper in Mozart's autograph MS. It's found <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1193559">here</a>. His analysis of the paper and the MS. is quite detailed. His bottom line is that the evidence shows that is most likely that Mozart's MS. uses the conventional ordering, not the M&R proposed ordering. Why is this a problem for the M&R thesis? Because, it would require that Mozart and Da Ponte knew long in advance of the premiere, or at any rate before the MS. score was finalized, of the fact that one singer would take Antonio and Curzio, and therefore the autograph score reflects the conventional ordering. If, however, they learned after the MS. was completed and before the premiere, then presumably the MS. would contain the M&R ordering, if their hypothesis is correct -- because they wouldn't have known of the doubling before the score was completed -- and they would have made the re-ordering to the conventional order on the fly at the premiere. Is this fatal for M&R? Some believe it is, although Tyson himself concludes that analysis of paper isn't conclusive. It's possible that changes were made to the MS. after the premiere, for instance, which seems the best avenue to salvage the M&R hypothesis for its defenders.</p><p>I had a lot of fun delving into this. It reminded me of my time as a high school student, devouring John Dover Wilson's "What happens in 'Hamlet'?", trying to unravel the true significance of the play-within-the-play.</p><p>Which ordering do you prefer and do you find the Moberly-Raeburn thesis convincing? Share your replies in the comments below!</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-24322994058422746222023-06-14T08:43:00.016-04:002023-06-17T03:35:09.272-04:00Toxic Masculinity and Gender Fluidity in Mozart and Da Ponte's "Le Nozze di Figaro"Here in Vienna, I attended, last night, a performance of the new Barrie Kosky production of "Figaro". This is the second in a triptych of the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas he's doing for Vienna over three seasons. First was "Don Giovanni", which I saw this past January (but which premiered the previous season, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown). Next season will see "Così fan tutte".<div><br /></div><div>Now, this isn't a review, or even an erudite commentary, but some random but hopefully interesting observations, riffing off Kosky's production. His stage settings (except in the final act) are fairly conventional, but the stage business, often involving protracted silences (even in the middle of recitatives), or ad libbed Italian dialogue in between scenes to act as a segue, is quite fascinating.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, the Count is an exemplar of toxic masculinity -- a model, in some ways, for Don Giovanni and even for Don Alfonso in the successor operas. It was prescient of Peter Sellars to set his Regietheater production of "Figaro" in Trump Tower, with the Count a putative Trump -- long before he was known to anyone outside New York, where he was widely seen at the time as just another New York schnorrer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kosky's Count takes the implied sexual violence of the opera to another level. In the crucial second act finale, where he's just banished the Countess from his sight, he attempts to rape her, before the action resumes. Is he chastened at the end? Mozart' sublime music of reconciliation seems to say so, yet doubts linger in the whirlwind final chorus, which seems more about forgetting and having fun than moving on to another reality of social organization in which the Count's actions are contained in a moral order absent from the ancien régime (and, of course, turns to be absent from what followed).</div><div><br /></div><div>How about Figaro? Here's an interesting tale. In his Act I aria, he expresses his disdain of the Count, suggesting he'll have the little Count dancing to his tune, and so forth. But this is as far as the Viennese censors would permit Mozart and Da Ponte to follow Beaumarchais's original French play. In Act IV, with Susanna apparently having deceived Figaro (she's not, she knows he's watching, she plays him to get revenge) by acceding to the Count's demands, he breaks out into a political speech in the play. But, this was a bridge too far for Vienna. So, the anti-monarchist screed is converted into a misogynistic rant, so ferocious, that it's hard to imagine Figaro ever viewing Susanna the same way, even when he learns the facts. And he, too, plays her in reverse, to get his revenge, before the reconciliation scene.</div><div><br /></div><div>(I want to thank Philippe Sly -- a brilliant Leporello in the Vienna "Don Giovanni" by Kosky -- for encouraging me to read the Beaumarchais play in its original French and compare it to Da Ponte's very sophisticated adaptation into an Italian opera libretto -- pointing out to me in particular what could be said in French but had to be censored in Italian. This, by the way, sort of turns on its head the adage, as applied to the play/opera, that "what cannot be said can be sung". Actually, quite a lot was said in Paris that couldn't be sung in Vienna. Yet, it's incredible that the opera could be performed at all. Relatedly, it's fascinating to compare a sophisticated opera libretto by a serious poet and dramatist -- for Lorenzo da Ponte was one as much as Hugo von Hofmannsthal -- to an original source, especially if it's a nearly contemporary play. I've done this sort of comparison previously, comparing Oscar Wilde's original French text of his play "Salome" to the text set by Strauss. This is a comparatively simple exercise, as Strauss essentially set an abridged version of the Hedwig Lachmann translation of the play into German. So it's more a question of what had to be omitted for reasons of space -- it takes a lot longer to sing a line of text than to speak it -- than of what was adapted.)</div><div><br /></div><div>And here's the crux, something I've written about before, the reconciliation scene between Figaro and Susanna just seems fake -- or, at least, banal. And this was surely the intention of the poet and the composer. After all, Susanna has just delivered one of the most ravishing arias in all of opera -- politely called a "bridal song" in old-fashioned program notes, really an invitation to sexual union with her lover, disguised in classical metaphor (I'll crown you with roses, and that sort of thing). Listen for the orgasm in the woodwinds. And her Act III duet with the Count bubbles over with sexual tension. Yet, this reconciliation is pat, quick, and deliberately formulaic -- preparing the requisite "happy ending". As often in Mozart, what lies beneath the surface can flip the surface reality. (Or, as Sergiu Celibidache puts it, somewhat more poetically, "There is a reality for every level of observation.")</div><div><br /></div><div>As Ruggero Raimondi -- himself a great Mozartian, who sang both Figaro and the Count with distinction, and once sang in and directed the Mozart/Da Ponte triptych -- has said, the end of the opera represents the end of a great love affair, that between Figaro and Susanna. And Figaro's own toxic masculinity -- as evidenced by his raging misogyny -- is a principal reason.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other fascinating aspect of Kosky's production is the portrayal of Cherubino, here sung and acted brilliantly by the young Austrian mezzo, Patricia Nolz. Baroque opera, of course, is replete with "travestito" (from the same Latin root that gives us our English word transvestite) roles. In Baroque opera, female roles were often sung by castrati -- castrated males with high voices. But that never enters into the libretto in any meaningful way. They're just women who are sung by men.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mozart and Da Ponte take the ambivalence to an entirely new level. Cherubino, a young man sung by a woman, is a travestito role (sometimes politely called a "trousers" or "breeches" role in English) that bends fixed, binary gender identity in a way never before seen in opera. In Act II, for instance, you have a woman playing and dressed as a man who is then undressed and dressed again as a woman. And, as they dress her, Susanna jokes that he (she) has fairer skin than she herself does, that sort of in joke, where we know that she's a woman all along. There's plenty of sexual banter and teasing. </div><div><br /></div><div>(Don't forget that Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal took a leaf from Mozart here in "Der Rosenkavalier", exploiting the ambivalence of the travestito role of Octavian. More generally, there are parallels between the three female leads, in class terms and in many other ways. The bourgeois born Countess becomes the Marschallin, to the manner born. Susanna, a servant, becomes the newly ennobled bourgeois Sophie. Cherubino, of uncertain social standing, becomes the aristocratic (but poor?) scion, Octavian. There's an essay for another time.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So who, then, is Cherubino? Conventionally, of course, he's just a man played by a woman. But Mozart and Da Ponte, through the ambiguity in text and music, invite us to blow apart this convenient binary. Cherubino is always described in, for lack of a better word, "effeminate" (in terms of an 18th century aesthetic) terms -- as in Figaro's aria ending Act I, in which he mocks the fashion plate Cherubino's chances of success in the army. (We know, from Beaumarchais's sequel, "La mere coupable", that he actually does die in battle somewhat later.) And in the music in which he's teased by Susanna and the Countess and elsewhere. Is Cherubino gay? Or bisexual? Or, could Cherubino be transsexual? Someone who's transitioned socially, if not medically, and who transitions back in Act II and Act III as part of the elaborate scheme to take revenge on the Count? Someone who makes a half hearted attempt to seduce the Countess (actually Susanna in disguise) in Act IV? Mozart and Da Ponte certainly don't deny the possibility. Whatever is the case, and having said which, the character's peculiar interest has been remarked on by writers through the ages -- including, famously, by Kierkegaard. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you accept the plausibility of the hypothesis, a sexually and/or gender fluid Cherubino, then Mozart and Da Ponte provide a commentary in 1786 that looks ahead 230 and more years to our present contestation, and politicization, of questions of sexual, and especially, gender identity. At the very least, a strict interpretation of the law in a raft of US states could mean that minors would be barred from attending a public performance of "Figaro", which would be classified as a "drag show" -- because, whether Cherubino is transsexual or not, he/she/they are, at a minimum, a transvestite.</div><div><br /></div><div>Peter Sellars once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that for opera to be relevant for us today, it shouldn't be embalmed in a sort of tradition that turns into a costume drama -- the sort of period piece by Merchant/Ivory that you see at art houses or on Masterpiece Theater. Rather, whilst remaining true to the music and the words, opera must speak to our contemporary reality. Sellars's own productions, of Mozart and other composers, consistently strive to and achieve this ambition. Here in Vienna, Kosky manages the feat with his production of "Figaro" that I would urge you to see if you can.</div>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-52349210327875615532023-03-30T15:23:00.002-04:002023-03-30T15:23:21.197-04:00To repeat or not to repeat? To divide or not to divide? Vexed questions in classical music performance<p>Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm fanatical about two things in the performance of Austro-German classical music, the question of repeats and of antiphonal placement of the violins. Both remain vexed questions, despite the fact that the historically informed performance (HIP) movement makes it clear that repeats ought to be observed and that the first and second violin desks ought to be divide antiphonally, that is, firsts on the conductor's left, seconds on the right.</p><p>Strangely, despite a half century or more of these insights, both precepts are honoured more in the breach than in the observance, especially in the non-German speaking world, and most certainly in the Anglophone and Francophone musical spheres. It's only recently (that is, in the last ten or fifteen years) that the Vienna Philharmonic, bastion of tradition if ever there was, has returned to antiphonal violin placement as the norm. This was the norm from the time of Haydn through to Richard Strauss, and is what composers would have expected. </p><p>At some point after the Second World War, the norm on both sides of the Atlantic became to lump the violins on the conductor's left. In one variation, cellos were out to the right, and violas tucked in behind then; in another version, the somewhat less barbarous of the two, the reverse. There are all sorts of theories as to why this happened, and no one (including conductors themselves as well as scholars of music) has yet furnished a fully satisfying explanation. The most plausible account seems to be that with the increased premium place on accuracy, conductors felt that the first and seconds, who often, though, crucially, not always, play in unions in tuttis, could hear each other better and therefore play together more effectively. Certainly, this helps explain why martinet conductors who insisted on precision at all costs, such as Herbert von Karajan, preferred this to the pre-war seating arrangement. The next generation, such as Claudio Abbado, continued this tradition. Only in recent times has it been realized, and here the HIP movement deserves much credit, that this does a great disservice to the composer's intentions. Listen to just about any movement of a Mozart or Haydn symphony, or a passage from a Mozart opera, or a Beethoven symphony, and you'll hear what I mean.</p><p>I've spoken to many distinguished conductors about the orchestral placement question. Those who do it as a matter of course obviously agree with me (and the scholarship). Some take.a pragmatic view. A few told me that they suggest antiphonal violin placement, but, if they are guest conducting and an orchestra prefers the alternative, they will defer to the orchestra's choice. Others point to acoustical problems in certain venues, which make it difficult to hear the seconds (which play inward, rather than out to the audience), if violins are divided. Likewise, some orchestra musicians have told me that the firsts and seconds prefer to sit together, to better hear each other.</p><p>It's clear that these are pragmatic, rather than artistic, considerations. Most I spoke to agreed that the optimal situation be antiphonally placed violins.</p><p>There are some related questions I won't dwell on, such as where to place the cellos and violas. Typically, in Berlin or Vienna, if violins are divided, cellos are placed centre left, and violas tucked in behind the seconds on the right. In Vienna, at the Musikverein, the Philharmonic places the double basses lined up against the back below the organ. In Salzburg, they place the basses to the back left, behind the cellos and the firsts. Some conductors, such as Italian maestro Antonello Manacorda, prefer to divide cellos from basses, thus placing the basses on the far right. This is extremely effective -- listen to his recent recordings of Beethoven symphonies for evidence.</p><p>Now to repeats. A traditional view -- espoused, for instance, by the late Sergiu Celibidache -- is that repeat marks in Classical and early Romantic repertoire were a Baroque hangover, a convention that can safely be ignored, because the composer didn't expect it to be followed. A variant of this is that repeats are only useful for new and unfamiliar works. We hear the Mozart symphonies so often, on this view, that who needs a repeat?</p><p>This rather cavalier view has been challenged by the historically informed performance school, who argue that composers knew exactly what they were doing, and, if a repeat mark was placed in a score, the composer intended it to be observed. As the late Georg Tintner once told me, not observing a repeat is akin to making a cut, something he was very much against.</p><p>Clear evidence that composers intended a repeat is in those cases where there is a lead back to the repeat. No one would have written those extra bars of lead back if the intention was to skip the repeat, if it were there merely as a convention.</p><p>It's now largely agreed that omitting exposition repeats is an egregious error, but it still does happen. How often do you hear the Beethoven Seventh, for example, with the exposition repeat in the finale omitted? Far too often. However, when it comes to second half repeats --which are common in Haydn and in Mozart -- many conductors today make the strange decision to observe the exposition (or first half) repeat but omit the second half repeat -- such as, for example, in the outer movements of the "Prague" symphony, or in the second movement of the G minor symphony K. 550, or in the finale of all three of the last symphonies.</p><p>Now, this is peculiar indeed, as it distorts the structure of the movement, to observe the first repeat and to omit the second. A lesser evil, which is what was done by an older generation of conductor, is perhaps to omit both repeats altogether. Far from ideal, but at least the symmetry of the structure is preserved.</p><p>On the repeats questions, most conductors I've spoken to agree that in principle they should be taken, and some follow this approach. Others cite pragmatic reasons for omitting repeats. Some examples include the fact that playing all the repeats might make a concert too long, or require that musicians be paid overtime, for example. It's sometimes said that orchestral musicians don't like to play repeats, so conductors omit them so as not to antagonize orchestra members. Playing all repeats in a long program might be fatiguing for musicians and audience alike. And so on and so forth.</p><p>Again, it's pretty clear that all of these are pragmatic rather than musical reasons. In an ideal world, there is no good reason to omit repeats, nor to lump violins together. The former simply pays disrespect to the composer's intentions. The latter leads to a thick, occluded orchestral sound, robbing us of the greater transparency and the clear delineation of the antiphonal interplay between firsts and seconds that the composer intended us to hear.</p><p>To rest my case, here's a recording of the second movement of the Mozart K. 550, where the composer marks both halves for repeat, and, of course, expects antiphonally placed violins. Observing the repeats gives the movement its necessary breadth and importance in the work. With both repeats observed, the movement clocks in at 15 minutes or more -- about the length of a slow movement in a Bruckner or Mahler symphony -- providing the necessary repose (albeit, a troubled repose) before we turn to the minuet and finale, which drag us down into the looming abyss. Divided violins bring the necessary transparency. This is a Deutsche Grammophon recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by James Levine, and recorded at the Musikverein under ideal conditions.</p><p>Listen for yourself.</p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/opx3K7OKexY">https://youtu.be/opx3K7OKexY</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-45621836132094061352023-03-20T19:17:00.006-04:002023-03-20T20:13:22.344-04:00The Yellow Gash: Sartre on Tintoretto<p> I was reminded recently of a beautiful British documentary <a href="https://youtu.be/YZBAkj54kfA">https://youtu.be/YZBAkj54kfA</a> film from the 1980s, exploring the works of Jacopo Tintoretto in the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice through the lens of the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Of the "Crucification" -- see here -- <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacopo_Tintoretto_-_Crucifixion_-_WGA22516.jpg#/media/File:Jacopo_Tintoretto_-_Crucifixion_-_WGA22516.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacopo_Tintoretto_-_Crucifixion_-_WGA22516.jpg#/media/File:Jacopo_Tintoretto_-_Crucifixion_-_WGA22516.jpg</a> -- Sartre, in <i>Qu'est-ce que la littérature?</i>, writes:</p><p>"Cette déchirure jaune du ciel au-dessus du Golgotha, le Tintoret ne l'a pas choisie pour <i>signifier</i> l'angoisse, ni non plus <i>la provoquer</i>; elle <i>est </i>angoisse, et ciel jaune en même temps." (italics are by Sartre) <a href="https://www.pileface.com/sollers/IMG/pdf/Sartre%20-%20Quest-ce%20que%20la%20litterature.pdf">https://www.pileface.com/sollers/IMG/pdf/Sartre%20-%20Quest-ce%20que%20la%20litterature.pdf</a></p><p>This translates into English as follows:</p><p>"Tintoretto did not choose that yellow rift in the sky above Golgotha <i>to signify</i> anguish or <i>to provoke</i> it. It <i>is</i> anguish and yellow sky at the same time." </p><p>(italics corrected from the English translation linked below, to match Sartre's French original) Note that this version translates the French original as "rift", whilst the documentary title uses the more evocative "gash". The most literal translation may be "tear" or "rip". <a href="https://faculty.weber.edu/ccall2/images/interests/WorldLit/WhatIsLiterature.pdf">https://faculty.weber.edu/ccall2/images/interests/WorldLit/WhatIsLiterature.pdf</a></p><p>Meanwhile, commenting on "The Miracle of the Slave" (or the "Miracle of Saint Mark:) -- see here -- <a href="https://www.gallerieaccademia.it/en/miracle-slave-also-known-miracle-saint-mark">https://www.gallerieaccademia.it/en/miracle-slave-also-known-miracle-saint-mark</a> -- Sartre raises the very pertinent question (paraphrasing), how do we know that the saint won't come crashing down to the ground? If her were levitating, his garment would be wrapped around him. Here, he seems to be in free fall. So, it's only faith that would lead us to believe that he won't fall to his death. Tintoretto, the subversive, per Sartre.</p><p>The documentary has a beautiful soundtrack, including the "Kyre" from the Mozart C minor Mass, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay, appearing at the end. If you'd like to listen, it's available here. <a href="https://youtu.be/ZW88EUKBYAg">https://youtu.be/ZW88EUKBYAg</a> .</p><p>As the documentary film puts it aptly, "In Tintoretto, Sartre recognizes a kindred spirit."</p><p><br /></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-7537754153095645432023-03-11T21:13:00.009-05:002023-03-11T21:26:34.835-05:00The French Revolution Distilled into a Single Word in a Mozart Opera (times two)<p> Well, perhaps that was a slight exaggeration in the title, but not by much. I've been struck by how rich the content of the recitatives in Mozart operas actually are. In bad, or badly prepared, performances, they're rushed through at high speed, sometimes almost unintelligible. Sometimes, often for practical, logistical reasons, the conductor will depute a répétiteur to prepare the recitatives. Michael Haneke once remarked that it would be better to do away with them altogether, if that's how they are treated. His filmed performance of "Così fan tutte" makes much of the recitatives, proving that he practices what he preaches.</p><p>I sometimes am struck by small details in the recitatives. Signifying, perhaps nothing, perhaps everything.</p><p>In Act 3 of "Le Nozze di Figaro", the Countess bemoans her state, in the celebrated accompanied recitative and aria, "E Susanna non vien - Dove sono i biei momenti". The last line of the accompanied recitative reads thus:</p><p>"Che dopo avermi con un misto inaudito d'infedeltà, di gelosia, di sdegni - prima amata, indi offesa, ed alfin tradita - fammi or cercar da una mia serva aita!" </p><p>In dense summary, she's unhappy that, due to the Count's infidelity, she's forced to rely on her servant for help. Now, most performers deliver this last line of the recitative, before jumping into the aria, without any particular emphasis. However, there's one (at least one that I know of) sparkling exception. The late, great Swiss soprano, Lisa della Casa, puts a special emphasis on the penultimate word of the recitative, "serva", literally pouring scorn into the word. Recall, this is the upper middle class young woman who married into aristocracy (think back to "The Barber of Seville"), and now she realizes that her class privilege is imperilled by her husband's bad behaviour. Listen to it here, in the classic Erich Kleiber recording from Vienna.</p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/VSaZaLH9N1M">https://youtu.be/VSaZaLH9N1M</a></p><p>Very few performances, or recordings, pick up on this small interpretative nuance. Indeed, when della Casa recorded the role again, again in Vienna, with Erich Leinsdorf, she didn't repeat it. But this is unforgettable.</p><p>************************</p><p>Here's the second case study. In Act 1 of "Don Giovanni", the eponymous protagonist is trying to convince the young peasant woman, Zerlina, that he should trust her and accompany him on a romantic tryst. She tells him that she's heard that noblemen aren't to be trusted. This is all before one of the most famous duets in all opera, "La ci darem la mano". But what interests us here is the secco recitative that precedes the duet. After Zerlina expresses her concerns, this is what Giovanni tells her:</p><p>È un impostura della gente plebea! La nobilità ha dipinta negli occhi l'onestà."</p><p>Roughly, this is a lie perpetrated by lower class folk, he tells her. Nobility can been seen in one's eyes. Many performers sing this bit of secco recitative without any particular emphasis. But, the great Italian bass-baritone, Ruggero Raimondi, gives this line particular emphasis. In particular, he (subtly) stresses the adjective "plebea". Listen here.</p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/-kxhvBDxL7E">https://youtu.be/-kxhvBDxL7E</a></p><p>The scorn for the low born is evident. This was two years before the French Revolution.</p><p>Everyone, notably the late, great American scholar, Charles Rosen, rightly points to "Viva la liberta", towards the end of Act 1, as a signal of where the sympathies of Mozart and Da Ponte lay. But -- this little bit of secco recitative, from the Don, a little earlier in the act, tells us that the class war has been fully joined, by both sides. And, please remember, that the Bourbon dynasty, toppled in 1789, returned, "in the baggage train of the Allies", in 1814. Plus ça change...</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-38885149343274965952023-02-21T09:48:00.004-05:002023-02-21T09:48:37.579-05:00But not quite...<p> Dear Friends</p><p>As my academic and professional comments and writings will now appear on Substack (see last posting), I've decided to restore this page to its original purpose, reflections on culture, politics, and society. Watch our for such new postings here.</p><p>Be well.</p><p>Vivek Dehejia</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-36797165818250887882022-02-09T09:14:00.000-05:002022-02-09T09:14:01.481-05:00Moving to Substack.<p> Friends, you can find future posts on Substack. <a href="https://vivekdehejia.substack.com">https://vivekdehejia.substack.com</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-88371796574815171912021-11-24T09:01:00.002-05:002021-11-24T09:01:32.039-05:00Rising inflation ought to be of concern -- it hurts the poor and the middle class disproportionately, whilst the wealthy profit from high asset price inflation, engendered by unconventional monetary policies. My piece for @financialpost . #cdnecon #cdnpoli<p> <a href="https://financialpost.com/opinion/vivek-dehejia-inflation-should-worry-the-left-too">https://financialpost.com/opinion/vivek-dehejia-inflation-should-worry-the-left-too</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-73901612727001344452021-11-18T11:03:00.003-05:002021-11-18T11:03:49.096-05:00I joined the fray in a New Left Radio podcast, with a spirited and engaging conversation on housing, inflation, and the debate on oil & gas in Canada. Do tune in, if you can.<p> <a href="https://www.newleft.ca/episode/nlr-counterpoint-fitsum-areguy-vivek-dehijia">https://www.newleft.ca/episode/nlr-counterpoint-fitsum-areguy-vivek-dehijia</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-63990154691616425212021-11-01T00:57:00.006-04:002021-11-01T01:01:08.348-04:00A wonderful tribute by the Ottawa Citizen, in honour of my father, who's shuttering his clinic after more than fifty years (!) on the same spot on Elgin Street in Ottawa.<a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-science-beauty-and-the-art-of-medicine-a-departing-doctor-reflects">https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-science-beauty-and-the-art-of-medicine-a-departing-doctor-reflects</a>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-31173387610391726492021-10-13T17:42:00.005-04:002021-10-13T17:42:58.630-04:00My take on this year's Nobel.<p> <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/a-nobel-for-teasing-causation-apart-from-correlation-11634141114109.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/a-nobel-for-teasing-causation-apart-from-correlation-11634141114109.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">2021 Nobel in Economics</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The anticipation in advance of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel — to give the prize its full title — is always palpable for academic economists, especially for those of us who’ve had the privilege of working with a future Laureate as doctoral students. To add to the sense of occasion, the Economics prize, by coincidence, happens to fall on Thanksgiving Day in Canada, a major national holiday. This year’s prize was awarded to David Card (one-half share) and to Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens (one quarter-share each), for their pathbreaking work in allowing us make credible causal claims when analyzing data.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In a sense, this year’s prize is the flip side of the 2019 prize, awarded to Michael Kremer, Indian-born Abhijit Banerjee, and Esther Duflo. That trio won, in good measure, for their work in popularizing “randomized controlled trials” (RCTs), long a staple in the natural sciences, in the realm of economics research. RCTs allow us to make causal claims by randomly assigning subjects to a “control” and a “treatment” group — the randomness ensuring that any difference between the two groups can plausibly be attributed to the treatment, rather than any unobserved differences; the theory being that such differences should average out when subjects are randomized.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But, RCTs have some major limitations, which your columnist has argued in detail in these pages (“The experimental turn in economics”, 30 January 2016). A key problem is “external validity” — can a finding in one context be replicated in another, very different, one? Equally importantly, because creating an RCT is not always feasible, nor even ethical, in many situations, such an approach simply cannot address some of the “big” questions in economics, which perforce require that we analyze raw, non-randomized data, but find some way to tease out causality, if it is present.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Recall at the outset that observing a statistical correlation between two variables in the data is not, in itself, evidence of a causal relationship. Take an example close to home. During the pandemic, my classes switched on-line, with a pre-recorded two-hour lecture followed by a “live” one-hour Q&A session. Attendance at the latter was highly recommended, but not mandatory. Uniformly, I observed that students who attended, and participated activity, in the discussion session performed better on the course. But is this because my discussion session allowed them to perform better? Flattering as that would be for any professor, it is equally plausible that those who were anyway going to do well chose to participate — what we call “reverse causality”. Or, perhaps there were unobserved differences between those who participated and those who did not — say, access to high quality internet and the time to read, study, and discuss rather than struggling with poor internet, work, and school — which could plausibly explain the correlation instead? In other words, does non-random selection, rather than causality, matter in this case?</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Economics is filled with such situations, where a correlation in the data entices us to draw a causal inference — which may be treacherous to do, in the absence of randomization, which, as noted, is impossible to achieve in most real world situations. The genius of David Card, working with the late Alan Krueger, was to find a clever solution, which was to look at a real world situation presenting as close to a natural experiment as the real world gives us — in this case, two contiguous US states which were otherwise similar, and which shared a common labour market and general macroeconomic conditions, but one of which increased the minimum wage whilst the other did not. (Interested readers may find a detailed exposition in fine write-ups on this year’s prize by economist Alex Tabarok in the Marginal Revolution blog <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/the-credibility-revolution-1.html">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/the-credibility-revolution-1.html</a> and Tim Harford in the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b9387d5d-4000-4898-967b-79ac50218a45">https://www.ft.com/content/b9387d5d-4000-4898-967b-79ac50218a45</a> .) By computing the “differences in differences” before and after the change and across the two jurisdictions allowed them to infer that any differential impact on unemployment was very likely driven by the policy change, not any unobserved differences.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In a similar vein, research by Angrist and Imbens, again with Krueger, in a series of papers, studied important questions such as whether increased schooling increases earnings, an obvious situation where any assumption of a unidirectional causal link may be problematic. (For instance, brighter students may study more and also earn higher incomes, both because of higher intrinsic ability.) In one seminal paper, Angrist and Krueger asked whether compulsory schooling could increase wages, and found a brilliant technique for randomization: given the oddities of the US school system, students born in late December would be one class behind those born in early January, and laws in some states allowed students to drop out at 16. The upshot is that there would be at least some students otherwise almost identical who got a year more of schooling for a purely random reason, and, these students, did indeed earn higher wages, making a causal claim tenable. (Again, check Tabarok and Harford for more details.)</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The beauty of these contributions is that they were not founded on a complex and technical mathematical or statistical result that would be undecipherable to the layman, but on a simple and profound intuition of how randomization may be found even in our messy and non-random world, thus making causal inference tenable. Three cheers!</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia is associate professor of economics and philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-68639904541734588092021-10-04T10:56:00.000-04:002021-10-04T10:56:14.916-04:00My latest column asks whether Evergrande's woes mean this is a Schandenfreude moment for China critics.<p> <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/is-this-the-schadenfreude-moment-for-china-sceptics-11633357171817.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/is-this-the-schadenfreude-moment-for-china-sceptics-11633357171817.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Is this the Schadenfreude moment for China sceptics?</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The woes of Chinese property development firm, Evergrande, heavily indebted to both domestic and foreign lenders and on the verge of collapse, has engendered a Schadenfreude moment amongst China sceptics: but is it premature? After the crisis broke out, some proclaimed that the imminent failure of Evergrande might just be China’s “Lehman moment”, referring to the 2008 bankruptcy of the New York investment bank, Lehman Brothers, which was the opening salvo in the global financial crisis. Yet, global financial markets settled after a day or two of turmoil, as investors bet that that the Chinese state, which still heavily regulates the economy, will restructure the debt-laden firm in a manner that forestalls any potential international contagion. The critics might just have to wait before popping the Schadenfreude champagne corks.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yet, even absent contagion, the Evergrande saga is but the tip of the iceberg of an overheated and indebted property sector which potentially threatens the edifice of the larger Chinese economy and, therefore, indirectly the global economy, too. In a fascinating long read, British-born historian, Niall Ferguson, makes just such a case (“Evergrande's Fall Shows How Xi Has Created a China Crisis”, Bloomberg Opinion, 26 September <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-26/niall-ferguson-evergrande-is-a-victim-of-xi-jinping-s-china-crisis">https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-26/niall-ferguson-evergrande-is-a-victim-of-xi-jinping-s-china-crisis</a> ).</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As Ferguson observes, Evergrande is emblematic of a China which has developed in the past decade with an economic development paradigm premised on “urbanization on steroids”. For all of the skyscrapers, both commercial and residential, that dot the landscape of Chinese cities, large and even small, many of these remain empty and their property developers unable to sell enough units to pay off the debt incurred in putting up the buildings to begin with.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In other words, the property sector in China, larger even than in the US on the eve of the collapse of Lehman, is a ticking time bomb that could have significant macroeconomic consequences beyond the property and financial sectors through the impact on Chinese households, who are heavily invested in a property market that has been in bubble territory for some time. Citing research by Harvard economics professor, Kenneth Rogoff, and his co-author, Yuanchen Yang of Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Ferguson notes that housing wealth accounts for a whopping 78 percent of total assets in China, much higher than the 35 percent share in the United States, for instance. The upshot is that consumer spending in China is, per Rogoff-Yang, “significantly more sensitive to a decline in housing prices” than in the US. The impacts of a more generalized collapse in the property market in China could be large and consequential for the global economy.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For those with a long enough memory, none of these recent developments should come as a surprise. As long ago as 2004, economist James Dean and I argued, and as I summarized for Mint readers much later (“Will the elephant overshadow the dragon?”, Economics Express, 5 March 2015 <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pj4cBThvnsqVASMOFGtNBJ/Will-the-elephant-overshadow-the-dragon.html">https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pj4cBThvnsqVASMOFGtNBJ/Will-the-elephant-overshadow-the-dragon.html</a> ), that the Chinese model is characterized by the glaring contradiction between ever-increasing economic freedoms and an authoritarian political dispensation. What is more, the economic development paradigm of the Chinese Communist authorities was focussed on an infrastructure-driven, “build and they will come” model, in sharp contrast to, say, the Indian model, in which the supply of new infrastructure is driven by the demand for it, rather than the reverse.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The consequence, as Dean and I argued in 2004, was a Chinese development success story that was something of a house of cards, and built upon excessive investment, including in housing — what the Austrian school of economics would call “malinvestment”. Chinese growth statistics would, therefore, in an important sense be inflated: after all, if the economy grows rapidly because of a stock of property and infrastructure that ultimately will never be put to use, and which leads to the accumulation of large debts, such rapid growth may be unsustainable and, in a certain sense, illusory.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Up until now, China sceptics, including your columnist, have been confounded by the reality that successive generations of the Chinese leadership have shown a remarkable ability to continue to refresh and reinvent their model — both economic and political — thus ensuring that growth rates remain high and that the spectre of social chaos and unrest remains at bay. Every Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping and his pioneering reforms of the late 1970s have managed to maintain the unwritten but all-important bargain with the populace: “we will give the you the opportunity to get rich, and the price is that you must stay out of politics”. But perhaps, just perhaps, the chickens may finally have come home to roost on the watch of authoritarian strongman, Xi Jinping — what, writing in 2015, I had reckoned might be an “implosion” in the Chinese economy or a “belated and disorderly democratization” of the society.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What might make this time different is that, in the past few years, Xi has begun to rewrite the unwritten social compact, and increase government and party control over the economy, and reign in what he clearly believes is an excessively free and insufficiently regulated market economy, undoing the premise of Deng’s reforms. He has also been, first quietly, now overtly, building a cult of personality to match that around Mao. If the economy, and the public mood, sour, Xi may end up ruing these choices.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia is associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-19019332822069814292021-09-17T10:54:00.002-04:002021-09-17T10:54:21.764-04:00My latest column analyses the Canadian election campaign.<a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/trudeau-has-taken-a-gamble-in-calling-an-early-election-11631774207091.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/trudeau-has-taken-a-gamble-in-calling-an-early-election-11631774207091.html</a><div><br /></div><div><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Trudeau has taken a gamble in calling an early election</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On 20th September, Canadians go to the polls, in an election that no one much wanted, except for incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party. At the helm of a minority government since 2019, Trudeau called an election two years early, in the hopes of capitalizing on Canada’s successful vaccination campaign to entice the voters into returning his government with a majority.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The snap election, in the midst of a burgeoning fourth wave of the still ongoing COVID19 pandemic, has been much criticized, but, according to Canadian law, the head of state, Governor General Mary Simon, did not have any choice but to grant Trudeau’s dissolution request and drop the election writ. This was even despite Trudeau’s minority government not having been defeated in a confidence vote, and therefore still enjoying the confidence of the House of Commons.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As your columnist has noted on previous occasions, Canada’s brand of the Westminster model gives almost unlimited power to an incumbent prime minister, much more than the power enjoyed by his or her counterpart in the United Kingdom or in India. The prime minister not only appoints the head of state but members of the Supreme Court, as well as filling any vacancies in the Senate, the unelected upper house of Parliament. This would be akin to a Prime Minister of India appointing the President, appointing members of the Rajya Sabha, as well as the Supreme Court. Likewise, in the U.K. and India, an incumbent prime minister has only limited ability to change the normal electoral calendar — which in India is decided by the Election Commission and in the U.K. is governed by the Fixed-Term Parliament Act. Canada, in theory, also has a fixed term law, but it is essentially toothless, and, in effect, only puts an upper limit on the lifespan of a government, rather than preventing a prime minister from opportunistically calling an early election midway through the government’s mandate.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If the polls are to be believed, Trudeau’s gamble is not likely to pay off, as the Liberals are running neck-and-neck with the main opposition, the Conservative Party, led by Erin O’Toole, its new leader. At the time of filing, it appears to be a coin toss whether the Liberals or Conservatives will win the election, which will almost certainly be a minority. A minority government would be vindication for O’Toole, who became party leader after a fractious leadership battle and that too in the midst of the pandemic. For Trudeau, it would be a major defeat, given that he had called an election for the self-evident purpose of winning a majority. His leadership would most certainly be in doubt and the knives within his party would certainly be out for calling the gamble of calling a premature election and then losing the bet.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The election is also a test for Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), a social democratic party that stands to the left of the Liberals. The NDP perennially run third, or sometimes even fourth, behind the Quebec separatist Bloc Quebecois, and have never sniffed victory, although Singh did play a pivotal role in keeping Trudeau’s minority government afloat the past two years. More interesting, perhaps, is the rise of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), a conservative party that stands to the right of the Conservatives. The party was founded by Maxime Bernier, a former Conservative, who lost a bitter leadership contest with O’Toole, and then left the party to start his own. Canada has not, until now, had a viable right wing party, and, while under Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the PPC, like the left wing Greens, are unlikely to win more than a handful of seats, at best, they could become increasingly important going forward, especially if they are able to pull the Conservatives back to the right and away from the crowded centre that they share with the governing Liberals. Likewise, if the Greens eat into the NDP’s votes, that might induce Singh to pivot further to the left.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For an election that Trudeau had described as “pivotal”, in an attempt to sell it to voters, the campaign has been singularly devoid of substance, with little daylight between the solidly centrist positions of the two main parties. Trudeau had attempted to create a wedge issue with his support for mandatory vaccination for federal employees and in other areas under federal jurisdiction, in the hopes of baiting O’Toole, whose party has its share of “anti-vaxxers”; likewise, Trudeau has raised the bogeyman of a putative privatization of Canada’s socialized healthcare system were the Conservatives to win. It is unclear how many, if any, of the undecided voters may be swayed by either of these issues. (Note: The Alberta crisis, with Conservative Premier Jason Kenney declaring a state of emergency, admitting he had mishandled the COVID19 pandemic, which may also hurt the federal Tories, occurred after this piece was filed.)</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Looked at from India’s vantage point, given the frictions with Trudeau over his public comments on the farmer protests in India, and the memory of his disastrously failed India visit in 2018, which your columnist had elsewhere described as a “slow-moving train wreck”, New Delhi mandarins are unlikely to be terribly disappointed if Trudeau is shown the door. Having said that, O’Toole does not enjoy the close personal relationship and obvious chemistry that Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys with the previous prime minister, the Conservative Stephen Harper, and is himself new in the job. Don’t expect any major shift in the moribund Canada-India bilateral relationship, no matter the outcome of the election no one wanted.</p></div>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-22222764558285798562021-09-06T07:14:00.001-04:002021-09-06T07:14:08.013-04:00My latest Mint column, on how dollar hegemony threatens emerging markets, revising the old Triffin Paradox.<p><a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-triffin-paradox-s-shadow-on-emerging-economies-11630862421294.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-triffin-paradox-s-shadow-on-emerging-economies-11630862421294.html</a></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As the last instalment of this column observed (“The dangers of continuing with unconventional policies”, 20 August), there is a rising drumbeat of debate about the unwinding of US “unconventional monetary policies” — in particular, large scale asset purchases, more commonly called “quantitative easing” — as well as the eventual normalization of the policy interest rate to above the near-zero level at which it has been stuck since the global financial crisis.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The topic came up for discussion during the recent (virtual) Jackson Hole meeting of the US Federal Reserve, where Fed chief, Jerome Powell, sent the markets his strongest signals yet that the US central banks is preparing to wind down its asset purchases, at present a staggering $120 billion per month. In a much-watched speech, Powell asserted that “substantial further progress” has been made on the Fed’s twin goals of keeping inflation on a low and stable path and the economy moving closer to full employment.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The minutes of a recent Federal Open Mark Committee (FOMC) meeting, which sets Fed policy, and which met before the Jackson Hole event, suggests a broad-based consensus amongst committee members that QE should start winding down later this year, although it is expected that the Fed will continue to hold an elevated stock of bonds even as the inflow of additional purchases tapers and eventually comes to a stop.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is noteworthy that, in Powell’s remarks, he sharply distinguished the tapering of QE from interest rate normalization, noting that a much more “stringent test ” would apply to the latter operation. <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20210827a.htm">https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20210827a.htm</a> The significance of this important distinction should not be passed over lightly.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Readers will recall well the 2013 “taper tantrum” crisis, on which your columnist has dilated on, and which created a panic in global financial markets — especially, emerging economy stock, bond, and currency markets — after then Fed chief, Ben Bernanke, rather loosely remarked that the Fed was planning to begin dialling down its asset purchases, without being terribly clear on his likely forward guidance on a glide path for interest rate normalization.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Speaking on the possibility of Fed tapering in an interview to the Financial Times (“Emerging economies cannot afford ‘taper tantrum’ repeat, says IMF’s Gopinath”, 29 August), International Monetary Fund chief economist, Indian-born, American economist Gita Gopinath, warned that emerging economies could not “afford” a repetition of the 2013 taper crisis. She told the FT: “[Emerging markets] are facing much harder headwinds….They are getting hit in many different ways, which is why they just cannot afford a situation where you have some sort of a tantrum of financial markets originating from the major central banks.”</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The danger that Gopinath and others have pointed out is that higher or stickier than expected inflation in the US will likely prompt the Fed to more aggressively ramp up interest rates as part of an accelerated normalization of monetary policy.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The danger scenario for emerging economies, especially heavily indebted ones, would be the twin blows of rising debt service costs on their dollar-denominated debts as well as the likely outflow of a large quantum of capital funds enticed by the now higher returns to be earned in dollars, to say nothing of the safe haven value of the dollar in times of economic volatility. Indeed, this is exactly what spooked the markets, and hobbled many key emerging economies, including India, back in 2013.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If such a “double whammy” scenario, as Gopinath terms it, returns today on the back of Fed tightening, the IMF estimates that $4.5 trillion of global gross domestic product could be wiped out by 2025. What is worse, the hit will likely falling disproportionately on low income developing and middle income emerging economies, according to former IMF chief economist, Maurice Obstfeld, also speaking to the FT. The fact that these economic shock waves would emanate in the context of a pandemic crisis that is worsening in many parts of the still largely un-vaccinated developing world might just make this the perfect storm.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In an unusually candid (as well as rather canny) comment, Gopinath observed that one of the difficulties at the time of Bernanke’s 2013 remarks that touched off the taper crisis was his announcement on QE tapering got “mixed up” with market expectation of more rapid interest rate normalization. This confusion may, indeed, have abetted the seriousness of the 2013 crisis, as it created greater uncertainty, with many more “carry trade” and other speculative investors in the emerging markets bolting for the door at the same time. She noted that, this time around, “super clear communication” is the need of the hour, and suggested that Powell is doing a good job. The implied criticism of Bernanke’s poor communication in 2013 is the understated inference.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Some perspective may be useful. As I noted in one of my earliest columns in this newspaper (“Illusions bred by a reserve currency”, 17 July 2014), reliance on a single global reserve currency, the US dollar — whether de jure, under Bretton Woods, or de facto, as at present — creates a peculiar dilemma, noted in the 1960s by economist Robert Triffin: the short term, domestically driven goals of the reserve currency economy may diverge from long term needs of the global economy. Inevitably, the hegemonic large country, which provides the reserve currency as a global public good, will privilege itself, at the expense of the rest of the world. The “Triffin paradox” is still with us.</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-50198793371919716462021-08-20T09:53:00.001-04:002021-08-20T09:53:42.981-04:00My latest, on the peril of indefinite loose monetary policy.<p><a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-dangers-of-continuing-with-unconventional-money-policies-11629446447654.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-dangers-of-continuing-with-unconventional-money-policies-11629446447654.html</a></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Are “unconventional” monetary policies (UMPs) deployed by the advanced economies a cure worse than the disease? Your columnist has asked this question on numerous occasions in recent years, as it becomes increasingly evident that the harmful side effects of UMPs, which helped alleviate the worst symptoms of the global financial crisis, are increasingly distorting not only the financial sector but the real economy as well, and causing serious and harmful “spillover” effects on emerging economies such as India.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has been a well-known critic of UMPs, and, in particular, the damaging effects of the “taper tantrum” of 2013, in which then Federal Reserve Board chair, Ben Bernanke, had to walk back from plans to taper the large scale asset purchases — commonly called “quantitative easing” — after his remarks that they would begin to taper, touched off a firestorm in international financial markets, and hit emerging economies, including India, especially hard.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Recently, Rajan penned a column (“The Dangers of Endless Quantitative Easing”, Project Syndicate, 2 August), in which he weighed in on the current debate occurring amongst members of the Fed as well as academic and bank and corporate economists on whether it is now high time for the Fed to taper its asset purchases, at present $120 billion per month. Rajan’s view is that supply constraints are now more pertinent than insufficient demand, and excessively accommodative monetary policy runs the risk of stoking inflation, which would have fiscal implications in the medium to longer rum, increasing the servicing costs on the large stock of government debt due to interest rates that will eventually have to go up as inflation begins to spike.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On 18 August, speaking to the Financial Times (“Top Fed official warns massive bond purchases are ill-suited for US economy”), Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed, threw his weight behind the Fed board beginning to taper after it meets next month, with the aim of winding down asset purchases altogether by the middle of next year, again citing supply constraints, such as the difficulty employers in the US are encountering finding workers, even as they offer higher wages. Importantly, Rosengren pointed to the harmful effects of asset price appreciation and “undue leverage”, as fund managers take on more and excessive risks in the search for yield in a low-interest environment.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ironically, asset price bubbles fuelled by leverage and low interest rates were the proximate cause of the global financial crisis to begin with, and they are in play once again as a serious side effect of low interest rates and asset purchases used to combat the effects of the crisis. This is a little like someone suffering insomnia, who then gets hooked on sleeping pills, and is unable to taper them and ends up taking them for life. Unless the US, and other advanced economies, begin to take seriously the need to pull back from UMPs, this is the situation we may end up in.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is worth reminding ourselves that debates about monetary policy are not merely an esoteric pastime for central bankers and finance gurus. Rather, excessively loose monetary policy has long-lasting and perverse effects on the real economy, too. One of the most damaging of these side effects is the increase in wealth and income inequality that has been abetted by low interest rates and asset price inflation.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is, after all, the already wealthy who have money to invest, and skyrocketing asset prices, everything from property to antique automobiles, boosts their wealth and income. By contrast, lower income households put their money in the bank, where they earn low, almost zero, interest rates that barely keep pace with inflation.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is more than a little bit of irony in the fact that loose monetary policy, which has received widespread support from left-leaning economists in the US, actually has done more to worsen inequality than the effects, say, of former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, which were widely criticized for being pro-rich. A recent study, reported on by Bloomberg (“U.S. Wealth Gap Rises With Jackson Hole Coming at the Top”, 18 August), documents widening wealth gaps between the top and bottom deciles of US counties. Looking at income from assets, in particular, interest, dividends, and rents, on a per capita basis, the top 10 percent of counties earned about $20,000 in asset income per person, on average. Meanwhile, in the bottom 10% of counties, that figure was only about $7,500. This has very little to do with the structure of taxation and very much to do with the distorting effects of low interest rates and frothy asset prices.</p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There are also more conventional dangers that lurk, unless the Fed and other advanced economy central banks get serious about winding down asset purchases and returning policy interest rates to more normal territory and away from near zero. During the “great moderation”, a long period of low inflation that preceded the financial crisis, there was a smug insouciance amongst central bankers and even academic economists that high inflation was a thing of the past. But with inflation now starting to tick up in the US and elsewhere, that smugness may soon evaporate, as Fed officials realize that it is far from easy to put the inflation genie back in the bottle, once it has been uncorked.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-45562742953452242862021-08-10T13:22:00.002-04:002021-08-11T08:51:23.264-04:00My next Mint column on the pandemic at an inflection point. The on-line version is unavailable due to a technical glitch. The text as filed is placed below.<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/the-pandemic-at-an-inflexion-point-calls-for-extra-care-11628441268697.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/the-pandemic-at-an-inflexion-point-calls-for-extra-care-11628441268697.html</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;">The pandemic at an inflection point calls for extra care</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fully a year and a half into the COVID19 global pandemic, the world appears to be at an inflection point in the management of the virus, and a clear divide is emerging between advanced and emerging countries. Last time, your columnist discussed the pros and cons of the United Kingdom’s re-opening plan, with the penultimate stage of unlocking on 19 July — dubbed “Freedom Day” by the British tabloids — while cases were still on the rise, driven by the Delta variant.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As I noted then (“Boris Johnson is taking a big gamble with ‘Freedom Day’”, 26 July), Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taking a big gamble on re-opening under such circumstances. The gamble appears to have paid off. After coming to a crest, new infections have begun to taper off, and serious illness, hospitalization, and morality remain far below the levels of earlier waves of the pandemic, which preceded widespread vaccination. If things go according to script, the UK is poised to remove removing pandemic-era restrictions later this month.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By contrast, in the United States, a clear divide has emerged between the “Red” (Republican) and “Blue” (Democratic) states — the former have relatively low levels of vaccination compared to the latter — not due to any supply constraints — the US is awash in vaccines — but due to vaccine hesitancy, which is much higher amongst Republicans, especially supporters of former President Donald Trump. While Blue states, such as New York, press ahead with re-opening, while maintaining some pandemic-era restrictions, such as social distancing and mask mandates, Red states are seeing a surge in new infections even as many, such as Florida, have eliminated all pandemic-related restrictions. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has gone so far as to ban local jurisdictions from re-imposing mask mandates, which the state has eliminated.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Meanwhile, Canada, the other major Anglo-American country in the Western hemisphere, has taken something of a middle path. With high rates of vaccination, most Canadian provinces are on a re-opening path, albeit at different speeds. Thus, while Ontario, the largest province, retains a mask mandate in indoor spaces, other provinces, such as Alberta, have eliminated it. Absent a major new Delta-driven outbreak, which cannot be ruled out, Canada as a whole appears to be on track for a return to normalcy, more or less, by later this autumn or early winter.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Variations of this pattern may be observed in other advanced Western countries, such as in Europe, all of which have now attained relatively high rates of vaccination, and most of whom are now well on a re-opening path. This summer has seen the return of major music festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival in Austria, with relatively few restrictions. Indeed, the festival had even dispensed with mandatory mask use inside the concert and theatre venues, until a fully vaccinated ticket holder tested positive. The mask mandate was hastily re-introduced, but few other restrictions remain. A short distance across the border in the German state of Bavaria, the Bayreuth Festival, devoted to the music of the 19th century composer Richard Wagner, is also back in full swing. Intra-European travel has also, just about, returned to normal, and foreign tourists have also returned.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The story, however, is very different in most of the emerging and developing world, where rates of vaccination, even of first doses, remain low, with full vaccination percentages often in the single digits. These countries, spanning the world from Latin America to Africa and Asia, remain acutely vulnerable to outbreaks of the virus, especially the virulent and highly transmissible Delta variant. Recent weeks have seen major outbreaks across Southeast Asia somewhat reminiscent of the devastating second wave that India experienced earlier this year.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The world now stands on the cusp of a two-speed recovery — both from the pandemic and of the economy — driven by differential vaccination rates in the rich as compared to the poor countries. This has fuelled cries for “global vaccine equity”, and even the World Health Organisation (WHO) has thrown its weight behind the idea. Recently, the WHO called for a pause on “booster” doses being planned in several rich countries, arguing that the need of the hour is to ramp up vaccination rates in the developing world. It is indeed a tragedy that, as rich countries such as the US and Canada sit on vast stockpiles of vaccines, many of which are sure to expire unused, there are millions of people in poorer countries still awaiting a second, or in many cases, even a first jab.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The major international financial organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as banks, investment houses, and management consultancies, have also lent their weight to the argument, as report after report show that ongoing pandemic-related restrictions in many developing countries will be a drag on the global economic recovery.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The implicit argument, although it is rarely stated directly, is that it is in the enlightened self-interest of the rich world to ensure that poorer parts of the world quickly get up to speed on vaccination, else the consequences will be dire for the rich world itself. Not only will the incipient global economic recovery stall, but denizens of the rich countries will be at risk from infection through successive putative new variants of the COVID19 virus against which the vaccines currently in use will presumably be less effective.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Much is at stake as the world stands at this inflection point.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia is an associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.</p><div><br /></div>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-32732581846901292282021-07-28T16:50:00.001-04:002021-07-28T16:50:15.930-04:00I join distinguished scholar Jay Bhattacharya to discuss "Freedom Day" in the UK and the hidden costs of lockdowns in conversation with Colin Brazier of GB News. [video]<p> <a href="https://youtu.be/cLnuW6ROzlc">https://youtu.be/cLnuW6ROzlc</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-73922603329675681592021-07-26T09:19:00.001-04:002021-07-26T09:19:06.858-04:00I speak to AP news about the serious financial burden caused to many poor Indian households due to the pandemic and with a poorly functioning public health system.<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-health-india-pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic-8ea04dfa5119727ba49e0066d6aeacd9">https://apnews.com/article/business-health-india-pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic-8ea04dfa5119727ba49e0066d6aeacd9</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-14107041164812723612021-07-25T14:52:00.001-04:002021-07-25T14:52:22.888-04:00Boris Johnson is taking a big gamble with ‘Freedom Day’ -- my latest Mint column<p> <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/boris-johnson-is-taking-a-big-gamble-with-freedom-day-11627046280929.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/boris-johnson-is-taking-a-big-gamble-with-freedom-day-11627046280929.html</a></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">With their usual flourish, British tabloids dubbed 19 July as “Freedom Day”, or, more prosaically, the day that the United Kingdom entered stage four of its re-opening plan. This was the day, delayed by four weeks, on which most remaining COVID19 pandemic-related restrictions were lifted in the UK. Some restrictions remain, such as the need for workers to self-isolate if they are pinged by the official contact testing and tracing app, and local bodies continue to impose their own restrictions — such as mandating mask use on the London Underground. But, in the main, most pandemic-era restrictions are gone: mask use is now voluntary, not compulsory (except where otherwise mandated), social distancing (already honoured in the breach rather than the observance for the past many weeks) is a thing of the past, and capacity limits have been lifted at restaurants, concert halls, theatres, and other public places.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is much that can be criticized in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic, and there has been much criticism by epidemiologists and other experts of the decision to go ahead with a full re-opening, in the face of sharply rising infections, and, even more worryingly, upticks in hospitalization and deaths, due, in large part, to the ubiquity of the delta variant, which is highly transmissible and has greater immune-escaping properties than the conventional COVID19 virus — meaning that it is possible for those already fully vaccinated to become infected. Additionally, while the full vaccination rate in the UK is about 50 percent, those under 18 have not been vaccinated. Anecdotal evidence, too, suggests that, despite almost half of all Britons now vaccinated, some parts of British inner cities, including London, have vaccination rates less than 30 percent. All of this spells potential trouble.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In light of this, it is striking that in a video message shared on 18 July via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1416764592043315204?s=20">https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1416764592043315204?s=20</a> , UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered this rationale for the re-opening, in the form of a rhetorical question: “If we don’t do it now, we’ve got to ask ourselves, when will we do it?” As he also remarked, due to the high vaccination rate (but recall the caveats I noted above), new infections have now largely been decoupled from new hospitalizations and increased mortality. A similar logic has underpinned the elimination of pandemic-era restrictions in a number of states of the United States — mostly the “Red” rather than “Blue” states, that is, those with Republican rather than Democratic governments — and the same underlies the sentiment increasingly heard from political conservatives in the Anglo-American sphere, that, post-vaccination, COVID19 should be seen as another, albeit an especially, nasty flu, and cannot be the basis for lockdowns and restrictions without end.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As your columnist has noted on previous occasions, lockdowns and other restrictions intended to flatten the curve of COVID19 infections pose a difficulty very similar to that posed by the deployment of unconventional monetary policies, most notably “quantitative easing” (QE) after the global financial crisis: how and when does one exit? Just as the unwinding of QE was repeatedly delayed in the US and other countries, and then put into reverse by the onset of the global COVID19 pandemic, exit from lockdowns and restrictions have either been open-ended or continually extended in most advanced Western countries.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The difficulty in finding the correct time to exit from restrictions and re-open the economy is, at one level, a matter of the trade-offs between the economic, psychic, and other benefits of earlier re-opening being weighed against the costs of increased infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, similarly due to re-opening, and as predicted by all of the standard “agent-based” epidemiological models (although the deficiency of these class of models, in ignoring behavioural responses by the public, have also been noted by your columnist).</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But, this is not the whole story. An additional rationale for prudence comes from political economy considerations. I would hypothesize that, other things equal, if an earlier re-opening goes well, the public is likely, at best, to look perhaps a little more favourably on the incumbent politician who went ahead with it. On the other hand, if things go badly, the incumbent is likely to be severely blamed by the public for a premature re-opening.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This crucial asymmetry in the “payoff matrix” (in the jargon of game theory) to the incumbent politician between the two scenarios will naturally induce caution, likely greater than would be warranted on the basis of a scientific benefit-cost analysis alone. In simpler terms, re-opening earlier with things going well may give a little fillip to the incumbent, but will not guarantee re-election, while things going badly will almost certainly spell disaster at the polls. It is, thus, much safer for a prudent politician, with an eye on the next elections, to be excessively cautious and delay re-opening beyond what would be necessary from the point of view of what is good for society.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A perfect example of this is the continuation of lockdowns and other restrictions in Canada, the caution of whose political leaders contrast sharply with the UK; striking, given the similar full vaccination rates in both countries. There is no doubt that Johnson is taking a big gamble with Freedom Day — you can be sure political leaders the world over will be watching with great interest.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia is associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-31230323092465984342021-07-11T09:43:00.000-04:002021-07-11T09:43:10.545-04:00My take on Modi's cabinet reshuffle.<p><a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/modis-cabinet-reshuffle-isn-t-as-peculiar-as-it-is-made-out-to-be-11626008735211.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/modis-cabinet-reshuffle-isn-t-as-peculiar-as-it-is-made-out-to-be-11626008735211.html</a></p><p>AS THE ARTICLE MAY BE PAYWALLED, THE TEXT OF THE ARTICLE, AS FILED, IS PLACED BELOW.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Speculating on, and then dissecting, a reshuffle in the Union Council of Ministers is a parlour game for political analysts and observers, but what consequence is there for the rest of us? In other words, apart from gossip on “who is in” and “who is out” and why these changes may have occurred, is there any reason for more than passing interest by those of us who do not sit in the Delhi durbar of one or the other politician (either on the way up or the way down) of any particular political stripe and who thus may have a personal interest in the matter?</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The short answer is: not really. As long back as 2015, during the first year of the first term in office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, I wrote a column in these pages asking, “Do expert ministers lead to better policy outcomes?” (16 January 2015). The context at that time was a volley of criticism against Smriti Irani, who was at that time was Minister of Human Resource Development, and the basis of the criticism was that she did not hold a university degree. There was also widespread praise for Jayant Sinha at that time, who was then Minister of State for Finance, given his background in management and finance.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Since that time, there have been several cabinet reshuffles, most significantly, of course, in Modi’s second term of office that commenced in 2019. But would one say that the appointment of X or the removal of Y from ministry A or B has had a marked impact on the overall public policy record, whether good, bad, or indifferent, of the Modi government? One would be hard-pressed to answer “yes”.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As my 2015 piece argued, the notion that expert ministers make a difference, while it sounds intuitively appealing, is difficult to find in the data, when one studies Cabinet systems of government in various countries and various points in time. The one exception appears to be a time of economic or financial crisis, such as after India’s crisis in 1991, when having a finance minister and/or central bank governor with expert credentials appears to make a difference — but not for the reason that you might think, but rather that the appointment of a domain expert sends a signal to the financial markets that the government is serious about fixing the underlying problems that led to the crisis. So perhaps domain expertise is, at best, more about signalling than it is about any concrete difference that a particular individual makes in a particular ministerial post.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is an additional reason worth noting. As your columnist has observed on numerous occasions, our inherited Westminster parliamentary system of government is remarkably malleable. Thus, at a time when the leading party depends heavily on the support of coalition partners, such as during the two terms of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2004 - 2014), appointments to the Council of Ministers could be seen as carrots to other parties in the coalition. Ministers, in such a situation, may have actual clout, and thus could make a tangible difference, as their position cements a coalition partnership. But, as we have seen during the Singh years, this is a mixed blessing: some of the alleged corruption scams of those years, as the reader will recall, were blamed on Singh’s inability, or unwillingness, to sack non-performing or otherwise problematic ministers, for fear of upsetting the coalition dharma.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The situation is very different under the current government. Unlike the Singh years, characterized by a weak prime minister whose remit was limited to “policy” but did not include delving into “politics”, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has led strong majority governments in both terms. Another interesting feature of the Westminster system is that, with a strong majority, overall Cabinet responsibility can morph into a quasi-Presidential system, in which the individual at the top, the Prime Minister, functions rather more like a chief executive than a first amongst equals. That has most certainly been the case under Modi, where it is no secret that important decisions are made, and routed through, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Indeed, the burgeoning size of the PMO staff under Modi is a sign of its increased importance in the overall scheme of things. In such a situation, individual ministers are little more than placeholders, who may be shuffled around, while key decisions rest with the Prime Minister and are guided more by inputs from his advisers and senior bureaucrats in his office than they are by the ministers nominally in charge of the various portfolios.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is nothing peculiar or uniquely Indian about this, and the current strong government, led from the PMO, is most assuredly not a sign of a weakening of India’s democratic credentials, as some foreign observers have suggested. Rather, it is precisely how the Westminster system functions when the governing party has a strong majority and is led by a strong prime minister who has a firm grip on his party. This would exactly describe the United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher (1979 - 1990) or Canada under Jean Chrétien (1993 - 2003). Indeed, Chrétien, a French Canadian, centralized power so much in his PMO, with his ministers largely ciphers, that he was ironically dubbed the “sun king”, in reference to the absolutist French monarch Louis XIV.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All of this is worth remembering as some of us play the parlour game of deciphering the meanings behind the latest reshuffle.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vivek Dehejia is associate professor of economics and philosophy at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.</p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-46254485357950961402021-06-27T15:20:00.003-04:002021-06-27T15:20:47.579-04:00"...when good economic policy goes hand-in-hand with good economic advice, the direction of causality is not necessarily from adviser to politician but sometimes works in the reverse direction." My latest.<p> <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/what-to-expect-of-tamil-nadu-s-new-economic-advisors-11624810516800.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/what-to-expect-of-tamil-nadu-s-new-economic-advisors-11624810516800.html</a></p><p><br /></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-14492184253429239332021-06-14T13:26:00.003-04:002021-06-14T13:26:46.766-04:00Good policy is always informed by good science, but "evidence-based" policymaking is a chimera. Ultimately, important policy decisions are based on political judgement, and reflect factors other than science. My latest Mint column.<p> <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-mythical-notion-of-evidence-based-policymaking-11623688266557.html">https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-mythical-notion-of-evidence-based-policymaking-11623688266557.html</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-42577079269712818972021-05-18T09:17:00.002-04:002021-05-18T09:17:35.098-04:00"Failures of globalization have worsened the pandemic" -- my latest Mint column.<p><a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/failures-of-globalization-have-worsened-the-pandemic-11621273421320.html"> https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/failures-of-globalization-have-worsened-the-pandemic-11621273421320.html</a></p><p><br /></p><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Failures of globalization have worsened the pandemic</b><br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Weak global governance is partly to blame for the glaring covid disparities that now afflict the world<br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Vivek Dehejia is a Mint columnist<br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-stretch: 99%;">In an essay published in 1979 (‘<i>Pour une morale de l’inconfort</i>’ or ‘For an ethic of discomfort’), the French philosopher Michel Foucault posed these uncomfortable questions and an unsettling observation: “<i>On assiste à une mondialisation de l’économie? À coup sûr. À une mondialisation des calculs politiques? Sans doute. Mais une universalisation de la conscience politique—certainement pas</i>.” These words, as translated into English by Homi Bhabha in a 2004 lecture, read: “We are witnessing a globalization of the economy? Quite possibly. A globalization of political calculations? Without a doubt. But a globalization of political consciousness—certainly not.” While Foucault, who died in 1984, has recently faced allegations of sexual misconduct, and his life and work are subject to scrutiny, the questions and observation he posed about the incomplete project of globalization remain pertinent.</span><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">At the very beginning of the process that we call globalization, Foucault was far ahead of his time in recognizing that globalization of the economy, and of the political calculus at the same time, was in motion. Equally, he recognized that these developments had not fostered a globalized political consciousness, and nor were they likely to. We may read Foucault as understanding that a globalized world of trade and financial flows, and the pervasive reach of multinational firms, which perhaps reached its peak in modern times just before the global financial crisis in 2007-08, had not generated a concomitant global political and social response—whether related to education, health and the environment, or inequalities of wealth, income and opportunity.</div><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">In simpler terms, a globalized economy has not engendered any correspondingly meaningful system of global governance. This has been increasingly on my mind, as the world copes with a two-speed response to the current covid pandemic. While parts of the rich world are speeding towards normalcy, much of the developing world is yet to begin a vaccination drive of much effect. For example, while the tiny British colony of Gibraltar is fully vaccinated, many poorer countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia have given a first vaccine dose to only 1-2% of their population, with almost no one having got a second dose needed for full vaccination.</div><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">Even India, with its indigenous vaccine-manufacturing capability, and a home-grown vaccine as well as a licence to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, both putting it in an advantageous position over most other developing countries, is currently in the grip of a devastating second wave of the illness. While domestic policy failures played a significant role in India’s situation, it cannot be gainsaid that the proposition of vaccinating a billion people, many of them poor, in a reasonable span of time was always going to be a tall order. This is even truer for developing countries that lack India’s advantage as a large producer of vaccines.</div><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">The globalization project, which began in earnest in the early 1990s, always conceived of a world of ever freer flows of goods, services, capital, technology and (to some extent) people, envisaging a tide of prosperity lifting all boats, but its weak link was always a creaky system of global governance built on the shaky foundations of institutions created in the dying days of World War II. Thus, there were no mechanisms adequate to address gaping and widening global inequalities in wealth and income, to say nothing of fighting climate change, which necessarily requires a globally coordinated solution, given its spillovers across national borders. Greenhouse gas emissions, after all, contribute to the global stock, no matter which country emits these. Even on a relatively arcane and technical subject such as the coordination of national monetary and exchange-rate policies to mitigate cross-border policy spillovers, often most damaging to developing countries, there has been occasional talk, especially after the crisis of 2007-08, but no real action.</div><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">The assumption that the world could muddle through with a globalized economy, but without any serious effort to create institutions of global governance that could manage the social, environmental, and other dislocating consequences, was barely tenable in the wake of the financial crisis. Indeed, one of its fallouts was the rise of economic nationalism, which, in effect, has attempted to unwind globalization, at least partially. Think of everything from former US President Donald Trump’s ‘Buy American’ policy, which his successor Joe Biden has continued without missing a beat, to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat policy of self-reliance.</div><div style="font-stretch: 99%;">What financial crises and the rise of populist politics could not quite manage to do in the span of several years, the covid pandemic has succeeded in doing in one fell swoop. The outbreak has cast into sharp relief the fractures of incomplete globalization that abetted the rapid propagation of the virus and its variants around the world, and has also given us a world of vaccine haves and have-nots. While Americans and Britons relish the return of restaurant dining, concerts and other such manifestations of normalcy, and this is a likely prospect in the coming months for much of the advanced world, most of the developing world remains vulnerable to the risks of infection, disease and death on a large scale.</div><span style="font-stretch: 98%;">The advanced world ignores the possibility of such a divide at its own peril. Unlike our imperfectly globalized world and its faltering institutions, the virus treats every person, and every country, equally.</span></div>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-80046503706874274172021-05-07T16:38:00.001-04:002021-05-07T16:38:05.925-04:00I speak to the Financial Post about the prospects of a Canada-India trade deal.<p><a href="https://financialpost.com/news/economy/canada-has-bungled-trade-deals-with-india-in-the-past-could-covid-and-china-finally-unite-the-two">https://financialpost.com/news/economy/canada-has-bungled-trade-deals-with-india-in-the-past-could-covid-and-china-finally-unite-the-two</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7016964789388227941.post-12783581455443332322021-05-06T09:08:00.004-04:002021-05-06T09:47:37.104-04:00I speak to Global News (Canada) about the current COVID19 crisis in India.<p> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7838668/india-covid-deaths-record-cases/">https://globalnews.ca/news/7838668/india-covid-deaths-record-cases/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Direct video link here: <a href="https://youtu.be/Egc9LY-Hs5A">https://youtu.be/Egc9LY-Hs5A</a></p>Vivek Dehejiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06027838018091663631noreply@blogger.com0