Category Archives: Economics

Here’s How You Manage Healthcare Costs

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

There is a terrific piece in the WSJ today about Narayana Hrudalaya and Dr. Devi Shetty called The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery. Narayana Hrudalaya has successfully “mass produced” heart surgery, in the process reducing its price by an order … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics | 2 Comments

Wall Street Bonuses are Not the Real Issue

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

This month the biggest Wall Street companies reported their quarterly earnings. JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs reported bumper earnings, Citgroup and Bank of America, not so good. But if you leave out write downs on debt, everyone had a … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, Finance | 6 Comments

Financial Transaction Tax

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

Philippe Douste-Blazy, the Chairman of Unitaid and the former French foreign minister writes in an op-ed in the New York Times about how the world could come up with the funds to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals The … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | 1 Comment

What’s So Difficult About a Gas Tax?

Posted on September 20, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

Tom Friedman in his latest column Real Men Tax Gas writes about a gas tax that could potentially fund healthcare, reduce the deficit and still have some leftover to make it up to people who can’t afford the tax: Such … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | 3 Comments

Does Complexity Have Regressive Social Effects?

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

I have written about the virtues of simplicity in business before. But when I look around things are getting more and more complex. Take the tax code for instance. The US tax code is so complex it is almost impossible … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | 4 Comments

Pay for Performance is Difficult to Implement

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

In the current debate on healthcare I’ve started hearing something that is quite familiar – pay for performance. The notion is simple – doctors should be paid based on patient outcomes not on the volume of work (fee-for-service). Its intent … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Comments Off

More on IT Unpolicy

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

In my previous post IT and the Role of Government I objected to Atanu Dey’s arguments against having an IT policy for India. He proposed, what I called an “IT Unpolicy” – basically, do nothing.

Posted in Economics, India, Technology | 4 Comments

IT and the Government

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

Atanu Dey has a series of posts that criticize the IT Vision Document released by the BJP in the runup to the Indian elections. In his latest post The Rational IT Policy, he proposes an IT policy that basically does … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, India, Technology | 2 Comments

Setting Targets or Expectation Setting

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Basab Pradhan

Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in an interview about India’s slowing GDP growth, to the Wall Street Journal says, “We must aim at 9%, as I will, and we must be happy if it’s between 8% and 9%.” This begs … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, India | 8 Comments

Haryana and Orissa lead Investment Tables

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Basab Pradhan

Ila Patnaik reviews CMIE data on state wise per capita investment in 2007. The states with the leading investment per capital are Haryana and Orissa. It just happens that I am quite familiar with both states since I am Oriya … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, India | 11 Comments