Samridhi Agarwal

In today’s @NewIndianXpress I write on the methodological issues of the Fiscal Health Index report - an important document for every state finance department influencing how Indian states can think about their macro-fiscal numbers! newindianexpress.com/amp/story/opin…

The balance of payments is in the spotlight again. India's BoP may be negative for a third year in a row. The current account gap as a percentage of GDP is at a modest level, but the funding requirement of around $85 billion will be close to 2013 levels. What is to be done? (1/6)

India’s FDI inflows are now down to 0.7% of GDP, but they were declining sharply since 2020. It raises important questions about the nature and scale of foreign capital entering the economy.

India stands out as one of the biggest losers as the artificial intelligence trade reshapes global investment flows. ebx.sh/v5mtrN

@KartikeyaBatra Truly appalling

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A painting of the end of meritocracy: A meeting of the two largest economies and not one woman at the table.

UPSC Aspirants let's deconstruct Udit Mishra's @ieuditmisra "Why saving forex could hamper India's growth". The Paradox of Demand Destruction The central thesis exposes a critical macroeconomic paradox currently confronting Indian policymakers: the attempt to cure a Balance of Payments (BoP) vulnerability by enforcing drastic consumption cuts (demand destruction) rather than addressing structural supply-side bottlenecks. In the wake of geopolitical shocks (e.g., the Iran conflict), the executive appeal to reduce imports of gold, edible oil, and chemical fertilizers to conserve Foreign Exchange (Forex) is an intuitive, yet economically hazardous, "quick fix." While autarky (self-reliance) is politically appealing, forced consumption reduction triggers a vicious Keynesian cycle: lower consumption leads to diminished corporate revenues, collapsed private capital expenditure (CapEx), job losses, and ultimately, a severe deceleration of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). True economic resilience relies not on hoarding dollars by starving the domestic economy, but by aggressively boosting domestic productivity, manufacturing competitiveness, and export velocity.

Anti-incumbency as a term is often used during elections I speak with @RishikaS_ of @IndianExpress to reflect on how to understand this phenomenon better. Link: bit.ly/3PdlQ5G

Our paper on fiscal consolidation and political instability in advanced economies: fiscal consolidation carries political costs. It lowers gov. approval and increases the likelihood of protests and government crises. However, costs vary with econ. conditions and policy design. 🧵

This speech by Governor Andrew Bailey on the difference between central bank 'independence' for monetary policy versus for financial stability is just great. I suspect this difference will attract increasing attention. @bankofengland @BoE_PressOffice bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2026/ap…

@KhoaVuUmn @florianederer 😆😆

@florianederer Did Marx use LaTeX write Das Kapital?

Reading these slides >>> Reading the classics

The latest episode of @IdeasofIndia is a special, early-release, cross over with the #GrandTamasha podcast where @MilanV and I had a wide-ranging conversation on delimitation, representation and the reshaping of Indian democracy. Audio+ Transcript: mercatus.org/ideasofindia/s…

With Italian salaries having stagnated for decades, Milan's house-price-to-income ratio (a popular metric of housing affordability) is now worse than London's. ft.trib.al/HVr7Aph

This summer I will be teaching a course on "Monetary and Fiscal Policies for Productivity Growth" in Barcelona on July 6-10. You can find infos on how to apply here bse.eu/summer-school/….

The real story of the regional election outcomes: old party structures don’t win anymore - they need dynamic structural changes within their party system. This is the most coherent analytical explanation 👇🏻

Yes, but every hour spent on an RCT is an hour not spent on the questions Jesus asked. This has a spillover effect too: when leading researchers and journal reward RCTs, sends a signal to juniors and others to work on RCTs not eg growth or industrial policy, etc. Those choices are not made with career concerns in mind, not marginal social value of answering each type of question. Need to debate the marginal value of RCT v. Other development research directly.

Partisan concerns are obfuscating a principled debate on serious issues raised by delimitation for the federal compact. We need to debate trade offs b/w representation & Equity, power sharing b/w levels of gvt. In HT today

No, the final stage of grief is doing a phd actually

Rising conflicts and geopolitical risks are prompting many governments to spend more on defense. Our latest research uses data from 164 countries since 1946 to study episodes of defense spending booms and their macroeconomic consequences. Read more: imf.org/en/publication…

Good summary of increasingly large literature on… the demise of reading (literature or anything else)

AI has raised the utility of work so much I'm working about 10h more per week than I used to. The joy of research was always in the exploring and discovering, suddenly I can spend my time doing that again.