Financial empowerment makes women more concerned about their participation in decision making A total of 1,387 working women from Mumbai were interviewed to analyse aspects like control over finance, household decisions and freedom of movement.

Zeeshan Shaikh reports: Women’s participation in the decision making process and their autonomy are equally important components of women empowerment, along with access to resources. A study was published in the International Journal of Science and Research to analyse the decision making powers of working women within the family.

Women claim more autonomy on husband’s income in joint families. The reason for this could be that other family members, such as in-laws, too stake claim to this income in joint families. On the other hand, women in nuclear families do not have this fear.
Dimensions-of Womens Autonomy and Family Influence

Refusing to bow to a French court decision which was clearly politically motivated, the IMF directors supported Ms. Lagarde’s continuing leadership of the fund.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was removed for transgressions that occurred while he was running the IMF.  If Ms. Lagarde was in fact guilty, events took place while she was still in the administration of Nicolas Sarkosy.

Since she has taken charge of the IMF, Ms. Lagarde has worked tirelessly on behalf of women and tried to bring attention to growing inequality in the world. Her work on behalf of these two critical issues and many others surely suggests that she is a good leader for the IMF.

The President-elect has made infrastructure repair a key item on his agenda for the first hundred days.  Democrats and Republicans both recognize the necessity for repairing infrastructure. For years there has been agreement.  And nothing has happened.

In the US, a small bill was passed recently in which the US Federal Reserve undertook the financing.  Most people agree that the Federal Reserve is not the institution to look to for money.  They have come to be the dollar of the last resort.

So where else can financing come from.  Trump has suggested private-public partnerships in which tax incentives bring private money to project.  In some cases this may work.  But there are some projects, like buses and bus routes in poorer cities, that are never going to make money and nonetheless need repair. Private companies are not going to be attracted to these kinds of projects.

The good news is that Senator Charles Schumer of New York and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg want to see infrastructure repair go forward and have agreed to help figure out how to make this possible.

The surprise announcement by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that all 500- and 1,000-rupee notes will be scrapped has been met with shock.

Indian media described the move variously as a “surgical strike” on tax evaders in the country’s overwhelmingly cash economy and a “big bang note”.

On Tuesday there were serpentine queues at ATMs as people tried to withdraw 100 rupee notes, which are still legal.

Banks and ATM machines were shut on Wednesday.
The surprise move, announced on Tuesday evening, is part of a crackdown on corruption and illegal cash holdings. New 500 and 2,000 rupee denomination notes will be issued to replace those removed from circulation……
bbc.com

It seems likely in the US that Hillary Clinton will be elected President  next month.  Here is what here economic team may look like:  Larry Summers or Paul Krugman have been hovering around Mrs.Clinton during the long campaign.  They will both probably get positions in the administration.  Here are some other prospects who might be choices as head of Treasury and Labor, or as deputies in these executive agencies or advisors to the President..

Stephanie Kelton is an economics professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has served as the chief economist for the Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee, and as an advisor to Bernie Sanders.

Kelton is probably best known for her work on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). It emphasizes that debt issued by the federal government doesn’t operate like any other form of debt.  This is because the government can’t create all the money it wants,  but can only create too-high inflation. And finally, that the amount of money the government puts into the economy via spending, versus the amount it takes out via taxes, is a key part of the overall ecology that determines the supply of jobs. And few people have done as much to game out the economic and policy consequences of those simple points as Kelton.

Joseph Stiglitz is an economics professor at Columbia University, a former CEA chair, and a Nobel Prize winner. He’s one of the most important economists in the world, and probably the one most unafraid to sit squarely and unabashedly to the left of mainstream economic orthodoxy.

Stiglitz takes aim at the forces creating inequality, and how they warp society and damage human lives. He understands that economics is created by politics: Inequality and stagnant wages are not the product of mere “natural” market forces, but of the way power is distributed throughout society and then used to shape the rules that govern economic outcomes.

Heather McGhee started at Demos, a left-leaning policy shop, way back in 2002; now she runs it. She was deputy director of domestic and economic policy for John Edwards’ 2008 presidential run, and helped engineer that campaign’s breakthrough effort to put the class divide at the center of U.S. politics. She works hard to marry racial and economic justice into one coherent goal, backed by serious policy substance.

Pavlina Tcherneva is the economics chair at Bard College, and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. She’s cut from much the same cloth as Kelton, but Tcherneva has devoted particular energy to the idea o a job guarantee.

On a Saturday afternoon in late September, I sat in the brand-new auditorium of my former high school in Beijing, watching the gala for my 10-year reunion. Near the end, teachers stepped onto the stage to deliver speeches.

“Girls, I hope you will focus on finding your life partners,” said the Chinese-language teacher, with the same stern air as when she urged us to succeed on the college entrance exam. “Marriage cannot be delayed,” the biology teacher said. The physical education teacher offered to set up single alumnae with eligible bachelors at her husband’s company.

At the dinner afterward, the conversation at my table turned to career changes. A friend surprised everyone by announcing that she would move to Shenzhen, a southern city, to look for a new job. Marveling at her courage but concerned about her decision, another classmate asked if she was aware of the “complications” faced by a childless woman seeking employment in her late 20s.

My female classmates and I, beneficiaries of China’s economic boom, are cruising along exciting professional paths…..Why chinese women still cant get a break /nytimes

Lisk Feng

Is it a wonder, then, that a growing number of professional women in China, buttressed by their education credentials and financial independence, are deciding to delay or forgo marriage and family? A 2010 study shows that half of the women with a university degree or above are unmarried or divorced. Derided as “leftover women” in the news media and by the government, they are subjects of well-intentioned exhortations, like those from my high school teachers, as well as less-than-generous assumptions from society at large.