11 April, 2025The growing burden of state subsidies
Delivery of welfare benefits to citizens by state governments in India often takes the form of subsidies. Analysing budgetary data from seven Indian states for the period between 2018-19 and 2022-23, ...
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Kishan Narayan 
17 March, 2025
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High public debt in India: 9 stylised facts
The Covid-induced surge in public debt in India was unique compared to its own history, but also bigger and driven by different factors relative to the average emerging market economy. In this post, M...
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Prachi Mishra Nikhil Patel
- 20 December, 2024
- Perspectives
Uneven resilience: Why some emerging markets better navigate US monetary policy cycles
As the US dollar and monetary policy continue to have a significant impact on global financial dynamics, some emerging markets are observed to be more resilient than others to the policy cycles. Analy...
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Joshua Aizenman Donghyun Park Irfan Qureshi Jamel Saadaoui Gazi Salah Uddin
- 30 September, 2024
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GST: A ‘good and simple’ tax?
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into effect in India on 1 July 2017. Even as it is too early to judge the performance of GST relative to the system of indirect taxation it has replaced, Gaurav D...
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Gaurav Datt
- 18 June, 2018
- Perspectives
Labour market effects of workfare programmes: Evidence from MNREGA
India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNREGA), the world’s largest workfare programme, provided employment to 51 million households in 2016. Assessing the impact of MNREGA on...
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Clément Imbert
- 27 April, 2018
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King Cash is back: Has informality increased?
Demonetisation and the introduction of goods and services tax were expected to accelerate the shift to formality in the economy. In this article, Renu Kohli contends that while currency in circulation...
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Renu Kohli
- 06 April, 2018
- Perspectives
Demand-side components of India’s GDP growth
As per the recently released first advance estimates of the Central Statistics Office, the real GDP growth for India is estimated at 6.5% in 2017-18, the slowest in the last four years. In this articl...
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Isha Gupta
- 03 April, 2018
- Perspectives
Jobless growth? From speculation to statistical analysis
This column investigates the relationship between economic growth and net job creation in India and South Asia. If economic growth was truly jobless, as is often claimed, labour productivity would be...
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Robert C M Beyer Martin Rama
- 16 March, 2018
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Fostering social connections
This column describes an ongoing study that analyses data from Delhi’s labour-intensive garment factories to explore the relationship between trust among workers and productivity. Using the strength...
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Farzana Afridi Amrita Dhillon Sherry Xin Li Swati Sharma
- 16 March, 2018
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Management practices and productivity in India
In this article, Bloom and Patnaik bring together research that analyses management practices of firms, and how they relate to firm productivity and performance. They highlight the importance of under...
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Nicholas Bloom Megha Patnaik
- 15 March, 2018
- Articles
Impact of labour regulations on Indian manufacturing sector
In this article, Devashish Mitra discusses structural bottlenecks in the Indian manufacturing sector such as labour market regulations and recent policy changes that incentivise capital-intensive prod...
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Devashish Mitra
- 13 March, 2018
- Perspectives
Industrial Policy in India
In this article, Ritam Chaurey provides an overview of India’s industrial and labour policy to put in perspective the issues facing firm growth.
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Ritam Chaurey
- 12 March, 2018
- Perspectives
Catching up: India’s transition from a colonial economy
The decline and stagnation of the Indian economy was reversed after independence. This column suggests although productivity in agriculture and industry rose after 1947, it was the service sector that...
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Bishnupriya Gupta
- 22 February, 2018
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Falling behind: India under colonial rule
At the time of independence, India was among the poorest countries in the world. This column argues that the main reason for India falling behind during the colonial rule was inadequate investment in ...
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Bishnupriya Gupta
- 21 February, 2018
- Articles
Communicating uncertainties in GDP data
In recent times there has been a lot of controversy around the accuracy and reliability of Indian GDP estimates. In this article, Amey Sapre and Rajeswari Sengupta contend that much of this confusion ...
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Amey Sapre Rajeswari Sengupta
- 19 February, 2018
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Macroeconomics Posts
Land in India: Market price vs. fundamental value
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2015, is focused on protecting the few home buyers who can afford to buy homes but does not address the issue of high land prices, which is a very se...
- Gurbachan Singh
- 29 February, 2016
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Land records and titles in India
Land ownership is broadly determined by access to a land title, which protects the rights of the title-holder, and impacts livelihoods, and industrial, economic, and social growth. However, land title...
- Prachee Mishra Roopal Suhag
- 20 November, 2017
- Perspectives
West Bengal’s economic performance relative to India over the last three decades
Against the backdrop of the ongoing elections in West Bengal, Maitreesh Ghatak examines how the state’s economic performance compares with that of the country as a whole, over the past three decades...
- Maitreesh Ghatak
- 01 May, 2021
- Articles