#121 Mundell's Trilemma; Sumption's Dilemma 🎧

<em>This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><strong><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em></strong><br/><br/><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.</em><br/><br/>📣📣📣 <em>Announcement: Admissions are now open for the summer cohort of Takshashila Institution’s 12-week Graduate Certificate Programme in Public Policy. Visit </em><a target="_blank" href="http://takshashila.org.in/courses"><em>takshashila.org.in/courses</em></a><em> to find out more.  </em><br/><br/>- <em>RSJ</em><br/><br/>A couple of short takes for the mid-week edition<em>.</em><br/><br/>An Obituary<br/><br/>Robert Mundell, the Noble Prize winning Canadian economist, died at his Italian home on Sunday. He was 88. <br/><br/>His obit in the New York Times read: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/business/economy/robert-mundell-dead.html"><em>Robert A. Mundell, a Father of the Euro and Reaganomics, Dies at 88. </em></a><br/><br/>I had mixed feelings when I read that line. Sure, you could argue Mundell’s works provided the intellectual foundation for the Euro and Reaganomics. But there are many other economists who might be ahead in the queue for claiming credit for those two phenomena. And then these aren’t exactly the greatest of times for either Reaganomics or the Euro.<br/><br/>Mundell’s greatest contribution to me was to set up a branch of economics singlehandedly. He theorised about international monetary policy when the idea itself was inconce