Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic waned and economies started to slowly get back to business, tourists were the first to take off! Travel and tourism which were the worst-hit sectors of the economy during the pandemic-induced recession, surged back to life and how! But, tourism, often touted as an important part of an economy, can… Continue reading How Much Tourism and Airbnb is Too Much for the Economy?
As most of India was celebrating the festive season last year, Cyclone Michaung hit South India and wreaked havoc in parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh inundating the city of Chennai once again. TV news reports were full of the levels of flooding in the city, where streets had turned into rivers and the… Continue reading How Livable Are Our Cities in India?
In India, organized retail is a fairly new phenomenon and it coexists with the traditional corner-shop or kirana store as it’s called here. Despite fears of the former destroying small mom and pop shops, the two have happily coexisted for a couple of decades now. That’s also because the Indian government didn’t allow large foreign… Continue reading When Fashion Goes Retail and Retail Goes Fashion
In my last few blog posts on climate change and how it affects the poor, I had wondered how a COP summit being held in hydrocarbon heartland would go. On the one hand, it could be stymied by all the powerful interests in fossil fuels present in the region as many of their economies are… Continue reading COP28 Ending on a Timid Note
We’re nearing the end of 2023, and it appears that most economies have managed to stave off a recession, except Germany, Austria, Poland and Sweden among advanced economies that might still close the year a little in the cold. Ireland too looks surprisingly weak in 2023, but not if you consider the previous two years… Continue reading What To Expect from the Global Economy in 2024
Recently, I wrote a piece here on my blog examining how much had really changed in the way consumers make their brand purchase decisions in today’s world. And I concluded that while plenty had changed in the technology dimension of advertising and marketing, consumers still make their brand choice decisions the way they always have.… Continue reading Advertising and Media in The New World
The ICC ODI Cricket World Cup could not have come to India at a more opportune time. Just when the country’s economy is weathering the global slowdown and actually growing at a decent clip, it could do with a booster dose of high energy sporting action and consumption. Just when beleaguered Disney Star is recovering… Continue reading What a Bonanza of Cricket and Advertising!
Two most dreaded words in economic circles and think-tanks these days is industrial policy. It is frowned upon because it has come to be associated with all the negatives of government intervention. Politics, geo-politics, picking winners, wasteful subsidies and creating distortions in what ought to be a free market economy. It has become a term… Continue reading India in Need of Industrial Policy 4.0
It is corporate earnings season once again! And while we wait for major corporations the world over to declare their earnings, we are also watching India Inc’s earnings report for the September 2023 quarter, which falls just before the festive season in India. In fact, because Diwali is slightly later than usual this year, we… Continue reading India is Bucking the Economic Slowdown, Or Is It?
The last time I wrote about the global economy, I wrote about its fractious state, thanks to the geopolitical tensions all around. This time, I thought I would look at it from the multilateral institutions’ point of view and then share my own thoughts on where the global economy might be headed. As I write… Continue reading Global Economy Still Searching for Direction
Peripatetic Perch 