Some of us with kids going to college this year may have experienced this with our kids or their friends in the past few months as decisions from universities started pouring in. Whilst most got what they aspired for; there were disappointments even amongst the best students as they faced rejections from elite universities. Ted […]
One of the big challenges that India has faced while formulating economic policies over the last several years is that high quality economists simply refuse to live in and work in India. At best, they are willing to fly in and out of the country whilst residing in higher income countries. A notable exception to […]
The key to good mental health in the final two or three decades of your life lies in your 40s and 50s. That’s our big learning from this fascinating piece. Ariana Eunjung Cha informs us that “…dementia prevention may hinge on what people do in their mid-30s to their 60s is rapidly reshaping the field. […]
One of the perplexing aspects of the Indian economy over the past few years has been the lack of investments from the Indian private sector, despite seemingly favourable conditions – access to cheap equity capital with retail SIPs pouring into mutual funds, low corporate leverage, a banking system in reasonable shape to support credit growth, […]
Last week, we featured a piece on how China’s success is underpinned by the social reforms and the unleashing of its human potential the hard way. This piece shows another aspect of Chinese human capital that isn’t as much about its competence as it is about its adaptability and resilience, built through its painful period […]
Rosa Abraham is an associate professor of economics at Azim Premji University and she is the star economist who has published the pathbreaking and much needed ‘State of Working India 2026’ report. This seminal piece of research traces four decades of data on youth employment and education in India and highlights how grim the current […]
Investors consistently earn less than the funds they invest in — NOT because fund managers underperform, but because investors put more money in after strong runs and pull back after weak ones, a behaviour directly visible in the data across most equity categories. This “timing penalty”, which our analysis suggests would be approximately 1% point per […]
The 150-year-old concept of the nation state is steadily being altered by: a) the growing complexity for such states to tax economic activity; b) the fact that barring USA & China, every state has reduced control of the critical technologies which underpin modern economies; and c) the migration of gainful employment away from salaried jobs (which are easy to tax) and […]
Quality investing lagged for five consecutive years (2021-25) as the twin post-Covid booms – Consumption and Govt capex – lifted all boats and investors moved away from expensive Quality names (trading at 50x earnings) to less expensive Value names (trading at 20x). FY26 was the high-water mark of that distortion: the Value factor returned 14% […]
Summary: Our meetings with a dozen large FIIs in North America and UK over the past few weeks suggest that scrapping equity Capital Gains Tax (CGT) for FIIs will trigger 3 different types of benefits for the Indian economy: a) lower borrowing costs for the sovereign and hence for corporates; b) a stronger INR and […]
Marcellus’ Global Compounders Portfolio (GCP) strategically invests in ~40 deeply moated global companies aligned with megatrends, with an aim to provide steady earnings and shareholder wealth compounding. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the world get increasingly intoxicated with the AI narrative. While we certainly see long-term merit in this technology and what it […]
Two in-depth, independently researched publications – our bestselling book “Breakpoint” and Azim Premji University’s “State of Working India 2026” – make three points which have significant implications for everyone reading this note: a) Jobs for graduates have dried up in India; b) Salaries for graduates have been FALLING for the best part of the past decade in real terms; […]
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