Articles by B B Bhattacharya

Has regional disparity widened in the post-reform period? This study attempts to probe this question by analysing growth rates of aggregate and sectoral domestic product of major states in the pre- and post-reform decades. The results indicate that while the growth rate of gross domestic product has improved only marginally in the post-reform decade, regional disparity in state domestic product (SDP) has widened much more drastically. Industrial states are now growing much faster than backward states, and there is no evidence of convergence of growth rates among states. Disturbingly, there is now also an inverse relationship between population growth and SDP growth. This has serious implications for employment and for the political economy of India.

Employment and Structural Adjustment A Look at 1991 Census Data B B Bhattacharya Arup Mitra The 1991 Census data on employment reveal that despite a significant acceleration of the industrial growth rate during the 80s, the share of manufaturing in total employment has declined. The employment elasticity in the manufacturing sector turns out to be as low as 0.2. Further, the employment growth in the private organised manufacturing has been negative during the 80s.

Excess Growth of Tertiary Sector B B Bhattacharya Arup Mitra IN response to our paper [Bhattacharya and Mitra, 1990] Nagaraj [1991) questions the empirical justification of the proposition concerning the excess growth of the tertiary sector. He presents some empirical evidence to indicate that the tertiary sector already had a high initial share in net domestic product and in subsequent years has grown slower than the secondary sector. He, however, concedes that during the period 1966-67 to 1976-77 the tertiary sector has grown faster than the secondary sector. But for the period as a whole (1950-51 to 1987-88) and especially in the eighties the tertiary sector has grown slower than the secondary sector. Also he argues that the rate of growth of the percentage share of tertiary sector in NDP has been slower than that of secondary sector.

This paper analyses the growth and composition of the internal public debt of the government of India during the period 1970-71 to 1987-88. Discussing the concept and measurement of public debt, the authors point out thai the budget classification does not provide a proper measure of the government's internal debt, tending to over-estimate it in some respects and under-estimate it in others. The authors note a significant change in the trend of public debt in the eighties as compared to the seventies and discuss the proximate causes and policy implications of this change.

This paper evaluates the forecasting efficiency of the central government budget and revised budget estimates. It is found that neither the budget nor revised budget estimates of revenue and expenditure satisfy the criteria of rational expectations of forecasting nor even unbiasedness. There is very little evidence of improvement in the efficiency of budgeting over time.