Any day now, India’s government is set to announce an official inflation target for the first time — a major step in the modernization of its economic institutions, particularly the central bank. The idea has been proposed and debated for years, including in a much-discussed 2008 report written for a previous Indian administration by Raghuram Rajan, now governor of …

  The U.S. general election officially begins on Labor Day, but the dynamics for this volatile race will be established in August. Or: With a polarized electorate, many of the parameters of the contest are already baked into the cake, so little will change over the next five weeks. Both predictions can’t be true, yet political operatives in both parties …

  Noah Smith Xavier Gabaix, a New York University economist who gets far less attention than he should, has written what might prove to be the most interesting macroeconomic theory paper in years. The title, “A Behavioral New Keynesian Model,” isn’t exactly exciting and the paper is still incomplete, but it might help resolve the most important and difficult macroeconomic …