The golden rule

What can a central bank do to control the demand for gold? Precious little, going by a conversation between two respected former governors of the Reserve Bank of India, C Rangarajan and Y V Reddy, at an event organised by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. Reddy joked that the prejudice against gold has a gender bias. He looked at Rangarajan and recalled that he once told him that his wife (Rangarajan’s) had this fondness for gold and kept buying it. Rangarajan tried to dissuade her, but in the end he agreed that she was right.