A V Rajwade: Reality checks on growth
Continuing the last week’s argument (“The reality beyond the numbers”, September 1), can the environmental agenda as implemented by our young and energetic minister take precedence over every other objective of the democratic government of a still poor country? Consider the number of major industrial/infrastructural projects/developments [...]
Evan A Feigenbaum: Challenge of a changing Asia
It’s been a rough six months in East Asia, as tensions ratchet up in Korea, navies drill, and governments, from China to Vietnam, trade barbs, claims and counterclaims to the South China Sea. But even as anxieties grow, it is economics, not security, that still defines the essential strategic reality of Asia today: China is fast becoming the [...]
Revisiting decoupling
In the aftermath of the trans-Atlantic financial crisis of 2008-09, two schools of thought had emerged in India on the likely impact of the Great Recession on the Indian economy. One school drew attention to India’s as yet limited exposure to global trade and capital flows and, therefore, suggested that India would be relatively insulated. A [...]
The 8% complacency trap
Growth in the nineties averaged about 6% but now we are consistently doing better at 8%. This has led to a sense of complacency and even triumphalism amongst policymakers and the media. The ‘second fastest growing economy’ appears to be waiting comfortably for China to stumble so that we can perhaps even lay claim to being the fastest growing [...]
Get the macro numbers right
The Central Statistics Office’s estimates of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the June quarter were widely criticized as soon as they were released, since GDP growth measured by the supply-side data and by the demand-side showed a huge divergence. GDP is measured on the supply side by adding up the cost paid to the factors of production [...]
Persisting uncertainty
Economic indicators from the United States and other developed countries, since the beginning of August, strongly suggest, at the very least, heightened uncertainty over their near term growth prospects. That the industrial countries, as a group, were expected to trail the developing nations in the recovery phase was anticipated. But now even the [...]
Downside to the upside
The 8.8 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2010-11 (that comes on the heels of 8.6 per cent in the last quarter of 2009-10) should put to rest any doubts about the durability of the economic recovery. It could also mean that the economy is getting back on the 9 per cent growth trajectory of the pre-crisis [...]
Satyajit Das: European delusions of stability
Pre-summer debt concerns of Greece, Spain and Portugal have receded. Market volatility and angst have eased. As markets return after the summer break and normal activity resumes, caution is the watchword. Greece passed its initial inspections carried out by the supervising “Troika”— comprising the European Central Bank (ECB), the European [...]
Growth underwhelms, over to policy reform
The headline GDP growth number for the first quarter of the current fiscal dazzles, the fastest in the last nine quarters at 8.8%, but only to deceive. This growth, to begin with, is over the first quarter of 2009-10, when the economy grew a mere 6%. This help from such a low base would not be available for growth in the remaining three quarters, [...]
Busting Urban Legends
France was only 55 per cent urban in the 1940s; so were large parts of Europe. Today, France, Italy and Spain, not to mention Germany and Scandinavia, are only 2-3 per cent rural. This is an indication of their prosperity. Latin America has just driven in to the smart set. Its high speed urbanisation, like a souped-up limo, touched 85 per cent at [...]