Few economic instruments reveal a government's macroeconomic anxieties more clearly than import tariffs on gold. Unlike duties on industrial inputs or consumer electronics, India raises gold and silver import tariffs to 15% and exposes the fundamental tension between cultural consumption patterns deeply embedded in a society and the cold arithmetic of foreign exchange management. India's recurring oscillation between tariff liberalisation and tariff escalation is not a policy failure but rather a structural feature of an economy where gold demand is simultaneously a source of cultural identity, investment utility, ... (full story)