The Indian economy is presently gripped by the dual phenomenon of an unprecedented slowdown as well as financial fragility. What has triggered this? Is this simply a random exogenous shock to an otherwise well-functioning economy? Or, is there anything structural about the present slowdown? What are the binding constraints for recovery? These questions are addressed in the context of India’s overall growth trajectory and policy regime in the last two decades.
There were high expectations from the budget on the changes in the tax system to provide stimulus to the beleaguered economy. However, fiscal conservatism has prevailed. The attempt to broaden the base by eliminating tax exemptions and preferences could have been done without complicating the tax structure. On the macro side, there are questions about the unrealism of the revenue estimates. Unduly optimistic estimates result in “tax terrorism,” lead to inefficient budget management and have adverse impacts on state finances.
While governments around the world cite job losses as the reason for the lack of enthusiasm to invest in climate action, research indicates that the green economy has the potential to create employment and spur economic growth.
Employment growth in India slowed down drastically during the period 2012 to 2016, after a marginal improvement between March 2010 and March 2012, according to the latest available employment data collected by the Labour Bureau.
The nature of money supply and its link with transactions in the economy are discussed, with necessary modifications on account of the presence of the unorganised sector and the black economy. This helps incorporate differentiation in the Indian economy that is useful to understand and analyse the impact of demonetisation.
In producing the new series, the Central Statistics Office with its rebased National Accounts Statistics has done a studious job of marshalling diverse sources of data and weaving them together into a composite new source. However, the final picture of NAS data would have been more acceptable if better caution was exercised in using new concepts as well as new sources of data, and in weighing the growth results against frequent and extensive revisions. The CSO has failed to refine the growth results juxtaposed against the repetitive and substantial revisions that the data sources have impelled and have completely ignored the analytical construct of gross domestic product at factor cost.
Juxtaposing data collected in the 1950s with data from 2013, this paper describes some of the consequences of a crisis of agriculture in India as a crisis of values and aspirations. Among a relatively prosperous Patidar community in western India, agriculture continues to be economically remunerative while farmers are considered poor. Instead, the ability to secure a job away from land, to move out of the village and possibly overseas have come to constitute new markers of status in a traditionally competitive society. The paper departs from common representations of the caste as an upwardly mobile and successful group, and focuses instead on the discontent and on those who try to achieve the new values of the caste, but fail. As a consequence of failure it shows how Patidars recur to what, from an outsider's point of view, may seem paradoxical: in order to "move up" and participate in the culture and economy of the caste, they have to "move down." In this respect, the paper also contributes to understanding the unevenness of India's growth and the contrary trends that work both to strengthen and weaken caste identity.
The roots of India's prolonged economic stagnation and the glimmer of hope that one notices on the horizon today cannot be fully understood if one ignores the variables that conventional analysis has taught us to ignore - the social norms, culture, beliefs, and the fabric of social interaction.
Women's engagement with economics, in its theory and its practice, takes several forms: to draw attention to problems not addressed before; to point out how the way problems have been addressed are unhelpful or fallacious and lead to wrong conclusions and wrong prescriptions; to critique theories and tools in order to expose their inadequacy or invalidity; to refine existing tools using available frameworks so as to 'let in' gender; and to seek new tools of analysis. The engagement can also be at a more philosophical level, namely, the foundational assumptions of the discipline. This paper seeks to explore these themes.
