In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

Read full article At 484 pages, the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019, released for comments by the human resource development (HRD) ministry, is a massive document. A policy should be a short and crisp framework document, with details eventually spelt out in legislations and rules and regulations that flow from it. This outcome could still be achieved by placing the key proposals in a short, single document with supporting arguments, analysis and data, useful in their own right, into an appendix. Turning to the substance of the policy on higher education, the draft NEP offers some excellent ideas. Its key recommendation to separate the functions of regulation, funding, accreditation and standard setting ought to be at the heart of future reform of higher education. It is broadly in the spirit of many of the ideas we have put forth earlier, though we differ on the details. The draft NEP also builds on recent HRD ministry reforms granting autonomy to higher education institutions following the recommendations of a NITI Aayog committee on which we served, and of the Higher Education…

Read full article Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made exports a high priority. Indeed, India would do well if it gave them the highest priority and pursued their success in mission mode. No nation has sustained growth rates of 9-10% for two or more decades without succeeding in global markets. China’s share in global merchandise exports rose from 2% in 1991 to 12.4% in 2012. These two decades saw China fully transform from a primarily agrarian to a modern industrial economy. Today, India’s share in global merchandise exports remains low at 1.7%. In 2000, when China’s GDP was no more than India’s today, it already accounted for 4% of global merchandise exports. Sustaining high growth and creating good jobs will require a strategy centred on building an export-friendly ecosystem in the country. The starting point for this strategy is shedding three of our current obsessions: import substitution, micro and small enterprises, and a strong rupee. Import substitution has never produced sustained rapid growth anywhere. On their own, micro and small enterprises can provide low productivity, subsistence wage employment to the…

Subramanian made the dramatic claim that the real GDP in India grew between 3.5% and 5.5% during 2011-17. Read full article In a recent working paper, former chief economic adviser in the ministry of finance Arvind Subramanian made the dramatic claim that the real gross domestic product (GDP) in India grew at a rate between 3.5% and 5.5% during 2011-12 to 2016-17. A number of critiques exposing myriad flaws of the paper have already appeared. They notably include contributions by Swaminathan Aiyar, Surjit Bhalla, Bibek Debroy, Charan Singh, and the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC). Subramanian’s analysis is so problem-ridden, and its claim so far-fetched, that there are only two possible explanations for why he wrote it. One, he blundered — he simply did not realise the innumerable methodological problems afflicting his analysis. Two, he was aware of the shortcomings, but chose to ignore them in the hope of creating a sensation and gaining the attention of the government, media and, possibly, the whole world

Read full article Abstract: The report on Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18 has now been released. Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made much of the leaked estimate of unemployment rate of 6.1%. Hoping to turn voters against him, they repeated ad nauseam that unemployment rate had turned the highest in 45 years. But with their blinkered vision, they failed to see that the flip side of unemployment rate is employment rate, which stood at a hefty 94%. For most voters, unemployment was not an issue. But the survey does point to a difficult road ahead for India. It reveals that the transition of workers out of agriculture into industry and services has continued to move at a snail’s pace. Agriculture’s share of employment, which had fallen rather slowly from 58.5% in 2004-05 to 48.9% in 2011-12, fell yet more slowly in the following six years to 44.1% in 2017-18. The fact that 44.1% of workers employed in agriculture produce only 15% of GDP means that output per worker in this sector is less than one-fourth of that in…

View video lecture here Free trade provides enormous benefits to developing countries. Arvind Panagariya will describe its impressive record in promoting growth and reducing poverty at a time when some policymakers in rich and poor countries are turning toward protectionism. He will explain how openness was key to the economic success of countries like South Korea and Taiwan and will refute claims that industrial policy, infant industry protection, or measures that erected barriers to trade have worked better than free trade itself. Anne Krueger will comment on Panagariya’s full‐​scale defense of free trade and warn about threats to the liberal, global trade regime.