How countries treat their rich; Basic facts about consumer grievances in finance; Pavithra Manivannan
How countries treat their rich
Jack Ma was once worth $60 billion; he just lost a lot of his empire. Rich people have faced many travails in countries like Saudi Arabia, China and Russia.
In my column in the Business Standard today, How countries treat their rich, I look at these experiences, and think about how the world looks for the rich when presented with these difficulties. This is an element inducing `uphill’ capital flows, and shaping the third globalisation.
Basic facts about consumer grievances in banking
Consumer protection in finance should reduce the number of unhappy consumers, and then there should be a good mechanism for grievance redressal. So far, in India, basic facts about the incidence of grievance, i.e. measurement of the `defect rate’ in consumer finance, has been lacking. As with FIRs in crime measurement, when the public system works badly, many an individual might rationally choose to not file a complaint. This generates a downward bias in the official data.
Vimal Balasubramaniam, Aishwarya Gawali, Renuka Sane and Srishti Sharma have a new article on The Leap Blog on 28 December, where they unveil important new survey-based measurement: Examining grievances and redress for banking products. As with crime measurement, they look beyond official statistics and ask questions of the households. This has created the first body of facts on this subject.
Pavithra Manivannan
Pavithra Manivannan got an author page on The Leap Blog.