Blog

New approaches to inducing economic growth in Sub-Saharan African countries

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Wednesday, September 19, 2018 in
Policy

In my nearly 30 years as a World Bank consultant, I have seen many sub-Saharan Africa economies lagging behind Asia and Latin America. Worse, I find that it is usually difficult to get investment projects to work as well as in Africa as in other places.

We try just as hard in Africa. My colleagues and I have traveled extensively through many African countries, including visiting hard-to-reach areas, to understand the ground reality, meet local people and their leaders. But, we still do not get similar results.

Course notes in Core Economics

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 in
Economics

Over 1981-88, I was an Assistant Professor of Economics, American University, Washington, DC. I taught mainly graduate courses. My fields were Econometrics and Development Economics.

In 2007, I returned to this University on a part-time basis. One the courses I taught was Introductory Economics for graduate students in the School of International Service. For most of them, this was a required course because they had not taken any economics course as undergraduates (or had completely forgotten what they had studied then.) And, most of them did not take any other course in economics.

I had asked to teach this course. Over the years, I had come to feel that introductory economics textbooks were not suitable for students who did not want to be economists. Therefore, I had said that I would write my own lectures from scratch, and not use any textbook.

Alternative to the odd-even plan: there’s another way out for Delhi’s traffic

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Saturday, January 30, 2016 in
Policy

In April 2016, the Delhi city government will run again the odd-even-day traffic-reducing scheme it tried out in January 2016. As in January, the project will run again for only two weeks. The aim is to reduce Delhi’s sky-high air pollution. Side benefits are easing Delhi’s traffic jams and reducing fossil fuel use.

Delhi is still looking for alternatives of this scheme. The scheme’s problem is that it creates too many disruptions in people’s day-to-day lives, and reduce productivity.

Red tulips bloom on a pleasant spring day

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Saturday, April 26, 2014 in
Gardening

Today is a very pleasant spring day; a bit cool (max 65 °F, min 18 °F) and a bit windy, but lots of sun. Red tulips bloom in my garden for the first time. We had a few yellow and white tulips earlier. Most of our bulbs were daffodils, which multiply on their own.

Promoting Renewable Energy by Transforming Its Unreliability Risk

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Saturday, March 15, 2014 in
Energy

Background

One of the key barriers to promoting grid-connected renewable energy (GRE) power generation (wind, solar) is that the supply from this generation source is unreliable. The reason is that the availability of the resource depends upon natural conditions beyond the control of the renewable energy developer. As a result, GRE power is not considered as ‘firm power’ that can be called upon when needed.

As a result, when an independent GRE developer sells power to the grid, the grid does not want to pay a ‘capacity credit’ to the developer, and would want to pay only the energy costs avoided by the grid. The reason is that the grid operator claims that since the grid has to build its own firm capacity, in case GRE power is not available, there are no capital cost savings for the grid.

Hydrangea cuttings grow in my lucky pot

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Friday, July 5, 2013 in
Gardening

The hydrangeas have been in bloom for several weeks now, and are now fading. As always, they look lovely.

This year, a couple of months ago, I had cut some branches from my hydrangeas, and plopped them into a pot. No rooting powder, no additives, nothing – just branches into a small pot.

Spiderwort and honeysuckle begin to flower in spring

Posted by Subodh Mathur on Monday, May 6, 2013 in
Gardening

My wish is to have flowers in my garden (in Bethesda, MD) all 365 days a year. This year, the hellebores may make my wish come true. They were out in early December (warm winter), and are still flowering. Sure, they are expensive, and I hesitated to buy them. On seeing my hesitation, one of my friends gave them to me as gift, and I am grateful for it.