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Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Dec 6

The RBI just cut the cash rate by 50bps and kept the policy rate on hold at 6.5% as slowing government spending and a weakening manufacturing sector is dragging down GDP growth.

This is my short thread on examining the India-Japan investment and trade relationship & why they haven't changed much in 10 years despite India being a big domestic demand market that Japan needs.

I argue that this is symptomatic of what is happening to Indian firms themselves. They find it hard to scale and leverage the labor endowments the country has.

How do we change this? Well, by changing the norms of thinking that the government needs to micro manage everything. It should set framework but let Indian private sector flourish.

Let's go.

First, what is the India Japan relationship? Well, it's getting better but remains SMALL relative to the ASEAN Japan (Vietnam Japan for example). Japan investment to India despite India being a huge domestic demand market that is super complementary to Japan weak demographic trends is at 4% of total. Look at ASEAN. Yes, at peak around 28% and settling about 24% of total.

India is a ginormous market. So why growing just from 2 to 4% of total???

Now let's look at Japan imports from India - it basically remains flat at a small level of 1% of total. Meanwhile, imports from China is 22% and ASEAN 15%.

So Japanese FDI to India has increased to 4% of total but imports remain small.

Basically this relationship remains small and has a lot of scope to grow.

Read 10 tweets

Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Dec 2

I'm going to Delhi this Thursday for the India Japan Conference. Excited to go. The key thing I will emphasize while India is how much India needs manufacturing.

The contraction of manufacturing in Q3 2024 led to sharp slowdown of GDP to 5.4%YoY.

India needs manufacturing not just for cyclical growth but social stability. There is no way you can absorb that many people from the rural sector without manufacturing.

The government needs to put all its effort behind this. Manufacturing is the future. It is an essential ingredient to growth.

Why? Because we still live in a material world. How do I know? India has about USD100bn deficit with China in manufactured goods.

Shared my views in this documentary:

My op-ed on India jobs & manufacturing and why there must be more emphasis on manufacturing:

asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/India-…

Read 4 tweets

Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Nov 21

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1014791235452588032

Guys,

Are you ready for a Trump tariff thread and what this means? This is going to be a bit of a technical one but I'll make it easy & fun & we'll go through literature & analysis.

Let's go.

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1014791235452588032

We start with the basics. How does tariff work? First, as you know, the US is a big free trader. Still is despite tons of tariffs on China. So goods in the US generally are tariff free to import & hence proliferation of foreign goods in the US.

But that being said, it does impose tariffs & duties. Sometimes overtly targeting a specific product to protect domestic sector due to lobbying. Anti-dumping duties is an example. A country that is not a market economy is an easy target (China, Vietnam) as u can say those countries have subsidized excessive production & hence duties.

But comes Trump. He has been consistent since the 1980s about the US trade deficit which he has railed against in public interviews and what does he do.

He started a US-China trade-war on washing machine duties.

Before we talk about what has Trump 1.0 (=first term 2017 to 2020) & Biden (2020 to 2024) done in terms of tariffs, I want to talk about the practicality of WHO PAYS FOR TARIFFS.

The IMPORTERS pay for tariffs. By that, American importers pay for tariffs. So when an item say costs 100 goes to 125 because of a 25% tariffs, there are a few things that COMPANIES that import can do.

They can PASS ON that cost to CUSTOMERS (buyers of goods). They can ABSORB that cost. They can FIND A NEW SOURCE to import. Or the SELLER can make the item cost 80 or a 20% reduction of previous price to then when the seller pay 25% that is just 100 BUCKS of import costs so the SELLER ABSORBS this margin compression.

That 25% goes to the IRS as government revenue. Who pays for it? Well, it depends on who ABSORBS THAT COSTS of 25% but surely 25% tariffs happen.

Read 18 tweets

Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Nov 8

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1854326137713025037

Two days after the elections & as Trump team prepares their team, let's talk about economic impact. This morning, I will read with you a few papers that have analyzed what he said as literal policy translation.

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1854326137713025037

First, Trump 2.0 will not be as messy as Trump 1.0. Why? Well, dude is gonna prolly get enough people to approve his thousands of people that will be appointed so DC.

This is what you get when you have total power (likely House, Senate).

Second, he has done it already so got a few people in the bags to choose from and the troops in the GOP have rallied behind him.

What does that mean? Trumponomics is going to be pretty forceful, whatever that may be.

There are a few things we know that he is very consistent:
a) On domestic policy - he will like extend his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) or basically corporate tax cuts and also income cuts. That will help boost economic growth but WIDENS THE DEFICIT.
b) On immigration - he will at the minimum TIGHTEN the policies. Whether he will actively deport all these people that entered illegally is a question mark. Irrespective, Biden towards the end of the term got the memo that the open border thing isn't good for politics and since tightened.
That said, he said he would deport so some deportation is likely. Magnitude is question mark.

Read 15 tweets

Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Oct 25

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1755422312718045482

Prabonomics Wish List: Higher Tax Revenue, More Social Welfare and Rapid GDP Growth.

A thread on Indonesia's 8th President who will lead Southeast Asia's largest economy & fourth most populous in the world in the next five years. Let's go! 🇮🇩

https://twitter.com/Trinhnomics/status/1755422312718045482

First, what is Prabonomics? Well, we don't know yet but he won on the promise of continuity of Jokonomics that comprised of infra capex, fiscal prudence, and downstreaming of metals (nickel).

Still, let's talk about his objectives. On the economy, he wants:

GDP to rise by 8% in the next 2-3 years (Jokowi only managed 4.1% on average in 10yrs and excluding Covid years then 5.1%) so that is raising GDP growth by 3-4% higher than its current batting average.

How will achieve this 3-4% higher average GDP growth?

Well, more social welfare spending is where we wants to do it. Basically, more free school food, more housing, more self sufficiency of food.

So a mix of social capital & some infra but generally more about social welfare vs the emphasis on highways and new capitals.

How much more? Well, he floated IDR450trn or 30bn for free school lunch for 81m Indonesian or 2% of GDP.

Read 20 tweets

Trinh

@Trinhnomics

Oct 14

Here is a short thread on why China fiscal policy, specifically central government support, is sorely needed & monetary support so far is not enough.

First, China got triple D problems - deflation, debt, demographic. All going badly.

Regarding deflation, it reflects an imbalanced economy where supply-side support for a long time has led to too much supply relative to demand domestically.

The easiest way to see it? China's producer price index. It's -2.8%YoY for September 2024. Meaning, producers get less money for the same stuff they make vs last year.

Okay, how is this bad? Margin compression. Your revenue is lower if you are a producer. Or DECLINING INDUSTRIAL PROFITS.

The positive side of this equation is that as they produce so much stuff that is not in demand and prices are cheap, then they can sell ABROAD (exports) for much cheaper than the competition.

A cheaper yuan (meaning depreciated) also helped. All those reasons led to China gaining global market share in manufactured goods to the chagrin of big traders like the EU, South Korea, Japan, and even the not big trader like India that has a about USD100bn of deficit w/ China.

Okay, so it's a bright spot as it gets more income than it spends (imports) so it has a trade surplus.

But that is also a source of geopolitical tensions as other countries are not happy w/ their firms going out of business as they can't compete w/ Chinese goods that are literally deflated.

So tariffs are going up, started by Trump in 2018 but frankly increasingly the EU and likely more and more...

Read 12 tweets

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