Studies showing that trade liberalization plays a positive role in economic growth are largely based on three arguments. The first argument focuses on investment indivisibilities wherein large sunk costs are required to build export-oriented production capacity. Without deep capital markets to mobilize large sums of money, firms need scale — often achieved through government-backed consolidation or state investment — to bear the high fixed costs of entering foreign markets. O

How can we know whether a witness is telling the truth, let alone prove it in court? In his 1871 treatise, Elements of Judicial Evidence, Thomas Wharton Leigh, among the most influential legal commentators of his generation, held that the assessment of a witness's veracity was an inference made with "scarcely any deliberate reasoning." In a civil or criminal trial, jurors, magistrates, and counsel could observe witnesses—noting their composure, hesitation, tone of voice—but t

Often the skeptical gallery-goer or the classically trained painter asks two basic questions when faced with conceptual art: Is this practice art at all, given that it may consist of nothing more than an instruction, a photograph of an event, or a typed statement? And, granting that such work is accepted as art of a new type, is it not merely a cold intellectual exercise, devoid of the feeling that art is supposed to carry? As Lucy Lippard notes in her study Six Years, two qu

Institutions rarely choose their tools from a blank slate. Once a technology, standard, or procedure becomes embedded — through habit, infrastructure, or the sunk cost of prior investment — switching away from it becomes disproportionately expensive relative to its actual merits. Economists call this path dependence, and its most cited illustration is the QWERTY keyboard: a layout designed to slow typists down on mechanical typewriters that has outlived its original justifica

There was a time when choosing a route to work, a health insurance plan, or a breakfast cereal required no more than habit and a little patience. That time has passed. We now inhabit what might be called a culture of optimization, in which every decision, however trivial, is haunted by the suspicion that a better option exists somewhere just out of view. The promise of this culture is efficiency; its cost, less often reckoned with, is a peculiar kind of paralysis. Consider th

The emergence of lab-grown meat has often been presented as a technological response to environmental degradation, animal welfare concerns and the growing demand for protein. Produced by cultivating animal cells rather than raising and slaughtering livestock, cultured meat promises a future in which consumers may enjoy identical biological tissue without the ecological and ethical costs traditionally associated with meat production. Predictably, public debate has revolved aro

On June 28, 2026, education reform activist Sonam Wangchuk began an indefinite hunger strike in support of a nationwide student movement protesting alleged irregularities in competitive examinations, particularly paper leaks and concerns regarding accountability in the examination system. Rather than portraying the issue as merely an administrative lapse, Wangchuk framed it as a crisis of institutional trust. In a country where millions view competitive examinations as the pr

A new class of drugs, originally developed to treat Type 2 diabetes, has unexpectedly become one of the world's most sought-after weight-loss treatments. Celebrities, influencers, and even ordinary consumers are embracing medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy, claiming dramatic reductions in body weight. The resulting surge in demand has transformed pharmaceutical companies into market giants while simultaneously raising difficult ethical questions. Supporters argue that obe

Artificial intelligence is frequently discussed as though its most significant consequence will be the elimination of jobs. This framing, while economically consequential, is intellectually narrow. Technological revolutions have always displaced occupations before generating new ones; the Industrial Revolution rendered many artisanal professions obsolete even as it created factories, managerial hierarchies and entirely new sectors. Whether AI follows the same trajectory remai

Welcome to the Reading Comprehension session by IIMwalaBanda. Most CAT aspirants who struggle with RCs make the same mistake: they immediately start solving very difficult passages, get overwhelmed, and then struggle to balance attempts with accuracy. I believe RC skills should be developed in levels. You don't become better at Reading Comprehension simply by solving harder and harder passages. You become better by developing the underlying skill—understanding what you read,