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Economics Nobel 2023

GS Paper - 3 (Economy)

The Nobel Prize in Economics for 2023 was awarded to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University professor, for “having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes”. Goldin’s pathbreaking work has shed light on the participation of women in the labour market over the past 200 years, and why the pay gap between men and women refuses to close even as many women are likely to be better educated than men in high income countries. While her research focused on the US, her findings are applicable to many other countries. Here are her key findings.

Who is Goldin?

1. Winning the economics Nobel might be her biggest honour yet but Goldin has been a trailblazer in the field. In 1990, she made history when she became the first woman to be awarded tenure in the economics department of Harvard University.
2. Getting tenure implies having a permanent appointment as a university professor that can be terminated only under extraordinary circumstances.
3. Goldin has been a pioneer in studying the role of women in the economy and has written several books on the topic, such as Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (Oxford, 1990), and Career & Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity (Princeton University Press, 2021).

Why has she won the award?

1. Before Goldin’s book was published in 1990, data mainly from the 20th century had been published, and researchers believed that as the economy grew, so did women’s labour force participation.
2. Goldin reached back to older data to reveal that before industrialisation, more women were likely to have been involved in economic activity related to agriculture and various cottage industries.
3. With greater industrialisation, work was concentrated in factories, and women found it difficult to leave their homes and travel to work.
4. This trend reversed in the early 20th century, with the growth of the services sector. Two other factors played a crucial role in women’s access to higher education and employment — marriage and the contraceptive pill.

The limitations of marriage

1. Goldin’s work found that by the beginning of the 20th century, while around 20 per cent of women were gainfully employed, the share of married women was only five per cent.
2. Goldin noted that legislation known as “marriage bars” often prevented married women from continuing their employment as teachers or office workers.
3. Goldin also demonstrated that there was another important factor in the slow reduction of the gap between men’s and women’s rates of employment, namely women’s expectations for their future careers,” the Nobel Prize website says.
4. Women’s expectations were based on the experience of their mothers, and thus their educational and professional decisions were not taken with the expectation of having a long, uninterrupted, and fruitful career.

Contraceptive pills

1. By the end of the 1960s, as easy-to-use contraceptive pills became more popular, women could exercise greater control over childbirth and actually plan careers and motherhood. Women also ventured beyond the services sector, studying subjects like law, economics, and medicine.
2. Now, women were catching up in terms of education and fields of employment. However, one glaring gap still remained and continues to this day — the gender-based pay gap.

Pay gap and parenthood

1. Till the time men and women worked in factories, where the pay depended on the day’s countable output, the pay gap was not too high. It became wider when monthly pay contracts came into the picture.
2. One factor significantly impacted how men were paid versus women — childbirth. As women had to shoulder more of the parenting responsibilities once a child was born, they were also punished for this at the work front in terms of a slower rise on the payscale.

Flashback

1. A Nobel Prize in Economics was not part of Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will that established the other prizes.
2. The prize is based on a donation received by the Nobel Foundation in 1968 from Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank), on the bank’s 300th anniversary.
3. It is formally called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
4. Goldin is only the third woman to win this honour. In 2009, Elinor Ostrom got the award along with Oliver E Williamson, while in 2019, Esther Duflo shared it with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer.

India’s response in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is called one of the “frozen conflicts” of the world. This conflict erupted, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive and within 24 hours, declared victory over the separatist province of Nagorno-Karabakh. Authorities of the province have now said the ethnic Armenian enclave would dissolve on 1 January 2024.  Though far away, the recent developments in the South Caucasus region have implications for India, in connectivity and ties with the region.

India’s position

1. In 2020, after the conflict broke out, it had said, “India believes that any lasting resolution of the conflict can only be achieved peacefully through diplomatic negotiations. In this regard, we support OSCE Minsk Group’s continued efforts for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
2. This time, after the conflict, Delhi has made it clear that it “encouraged the parties to move forward on ensuring long-term peace and security in the region through dialogue and diplomacy, which includes the safety and well-being of all civilians”.
3. India has ties with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Importantly, the region is central to its plans of connectivity through the south Caucasus region.

India’s ties with Armenia

1. India’s ties with Armenia date back millenia. Historians have suggested that when Assyrian warrior queen Semiramis invaded India in 2000 BC, some Armenians accompanied her.
2. According to literary evidence, Indian settlements in Armenia were established by two princes (Krishna and Ganesh escaping from Kannauj) in 149 BC.
3. The first guidebook to Indian cities in Armenian was written in the 12th century. A few Armenian traders had come to Agra during the Mughal Empire. Emperor Akbar, who is believed to have an Armenian wife Mariam Zamani Begum, granted them privileges and considerable religious freedom.
4. In the 16th century, Armenian communities emerged in Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai and Agra. Today, the vestigial community is mainly settled in Kolkata.
5. In contrast, historical ties between India and Azerbaijan have been more recent — the ‘Ateshgah’ fire temple in the vicinity of Baku is an 18th-century monument, with a much older history, and has wall inscriptions in Devanagari and Gurmukhi.
6. It is a surviving proof of the hospitality that Indian merchants on the Silk Route to Europe enjoyed in Azerbaijani cities such as Baku and Ganja.
7. In modern times, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, India recognised the independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan and established diplomatic relations.
8. Armenia publicly endorses India’s position on the resolution of the Kashmir issue on a bilateral basis and supports India’s aspiration for a permanent seat in the expanded UN Security Council.
9. In fact, in 2022, the India-Armenia deal to supply Armenian armed forces with PINAKA multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRL), anti-tank munitions, and ammunitions and warlike stores worth US $250 million was viewed as Delhi siding with Yerevan.

India’s ties with Armenia

1. In contrast, Azerbaijan’s proximity to Pakistan has been perceived as an irritant in the ties. There has not been a single visit at the level of Head of State/ Government between India and Azerbaijan.
2. India’s Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, former President Dr S. Radhakrishnan (as Vice President in 1956) and former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (in 1961) had visited the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.
3. In recent years, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu visited Baku for the NAM Summit in 2019, accompanied by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Former External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had also visited Azerbaijan for the NAM ministerial meeting in 2018.
4. Because of the geographical location of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the region is important as a viable corridor for India’s connectivity with Russia and Europe through Central Asia and Iran.
5. Armenia and Azerbaijan are members of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which India is keen to develop. India supports Armenia’s proposal to include Iran’s Chabahar port in INSTC.
6. Tensions in the region directly impact India’s plans to bypass Pakistan as the gateway to Europe and Russia. New Delhi has to figure out a way around this.

Hamas attack compared to Yom Kippur war

GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

The surprise attack by Hamas on Israel has brought back memories of the Yom Kippur war, which started 50 years and reset equations in the Middle East forever.

Why is the current violence being compared with the Yom Kippur war?

1. For one, this has been the deadliest attack on Israel since the Yom Kippur war of 1973. Gunmen from Hamas carried out a rampage in Israeli towns on 7 October 2023, killing at least 400 Israelis so far and abducting many civilians.
2. In retaliation, Israeli strikes have killed at least 313 Palestinians. In the Yom Kippur war, more than 2,500 Israeli soldiers were killed.
3. The second similarity is the criticism within Israel for the state being found unprepared. The attack came as a surprise, despite Israel’s advanced intelligence and interception systems.
4. The Yom Kippur war, too, had found Israel unprepared, with many soldiers on leave because of Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in Judaism.
5. This attack came when many Israelis were preparing to observe Simchat Torah, which marks the end of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new one. The Torah constitutes the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

What was the Yom Kippur war?

1. The Yom Kippur war, or the October war, or the Ramadan war, was fought between Israel on one side and Egypt and Syria on the other, from 6 October to 25 October 1973.
2. It is also called the Fourth Arab-Israeli war, coming after three wars in 1949, 1956, and 1967.
3. After its decisive victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel had acquired an aura of invincibility, and also captured territories from its neighbours, including the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
4. Six years later, the two countries launched a coordinated attack on Israel. While Israel was aware of troops mobilisation, it had not expected an attack in the Holy Islamic month of Ramadan.
5. Caught by surprise, Israel took time to mobilise its own soldiers, many of whom were on leave for Yom Kippur. Thus, initially, both Syria and Egypt made some gains.
6. Israel was able to stem the advance on both Syrian and Egyptian sides after three days and soon launched its own counterstrikes.
7. Meanwhile, the US and the Soviet Union stepped in to back Israel and Egypt-Syria respectively, and tensions between the superpowers escalated dangerously.
8. The first ceasefire, brokered by the UN on 22 October, did not hold. However, by 25 October, a lasting ceasefire had been arrived at, with Israel’s reputation of invincibility dented.

What is the significance of the Yom Kippur war?

1. If Israel managed to beat back both attackers, why is Yom Kippur still seen as a game changer? This was because its scramble to rally troops initially, and the heavy casualties it suffered, made it clear that Israel could be battered, if not beaten, in battle. Six months after the war, Prime Minister Golda Meir and her cabinet resigned.
2. In fact, many analysts believe that Egypt’s strategy behind launching the attack was not necessarily to defeat the militarily superior Israel, but to bruise it enough to bring it to the negotiating table.
3. After the ceasefire, a peace process was set in motion. Under the 1978 Camp David Accords, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
4. The 1979 Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty was the first instance of an Arab country recognising Israel as a state.
5. For Syria, however, the war brought no happy consequences. The Israel-Egypt peace deal had nothing for Syria, and Israel in fact ended up occupying even more of the strategically important and fertile plateau of Golan Heights, which it holds to this day.