Insights
Published when developments warrant commentary or when the conventional reading of available data appears incorrect. These reflect individual analyst judgement, not institutional positions.
The world comes to trek. Little stays.
Nepal hosts some of the most sought-after tourism experiences on earth. The economic return from those experiences, the share retained domestically, invested productively, and distributed beyond the trekking elite, is far smaller than the headline arrivals numbers suggest.
Read →The economy that works abroad
Remittances now exceed a quarter of Nepal's GDP. They are a lifeline for millions of households and the primary stabiliser of the macroeconomy. They are also a structural narcotic, suppressing the urgency of reform, subsidising consumption over investment, and deepening the dependency they were meant to bridge.
Read →The concrete speculation
Nepal's real estate and construction sector absorbed more capital than any other part of the private economy over the past decade. It produced housing that the poor cannot afford, infrastructure that stalls at every election, and a speculative land market that now sits largely frozen.
Read →Water wealth, wired wrong
Nepal holds the second-largest hydropower potential in the world. It has developed less than 3% of it. The gap between what nature provided and what politics, geography, and capital have delivered is the defining industrial story of modern Nepal.
Read →Flying blind: Nepal’s fiscal federalism has a data problem
Seven years into a federal experiment, Nepal's provincial and local governments are making consequential budget decisions using incomplete revenue statistics, outdated population figures, and no systematic measure of local need. The governance failures attributed to federalism often have their true roots in data infrastructure.
Read →Too many banks, too little credit
Nepal's financial sector has grown spectacularly on paper. Twenty commercial banks, 64 development banks, and a stock market that briefly went vertical. Beneath the expansion lies a system that still fails to channel capital where the economy needs it most.
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