Archives: Event

State of the Economy Seminar

NCAER presented its Quarterly Review of the Economy at this seminar held at NCAER. The review covered the performance of the economy in the last quarter of 2014-15 and presented forecast for 2015-16.

NCAER’s annual model predicts that GDP at market price, 2011-12 prices will grow at 7.8 per cent in 2015-16, according to this report release by NCAER. The WPI Energy assumption is crucial to this prediction. The baseline assumes that WPI Energy will fall by five per cent. However, if WPI Energy is assumed to fall by two per cent, GDP will grow at 7.7 per cent and if it is assumed to fall by ten per cent, GDP is expected to grow at 8.6 per cent.

The overall macroeconomic picture at the beginning of the new fiscal year is like the Curate’s egg – good in parts. There are unmistakable signs of recovery, especially in industrial production, where the year-on-year growth at 2.8% is well above the previous year’s decline of 0.1%. But the recovery is still too tepid given both our need and our potential. Add to this the doubts on the agriculture front on account of uncertainties regarding the impact of El Nino on the South-West monsoon and the somewhat uncertain global recovery and the outlook for the current fiscal is one of cautious optimism.

  • The growth prospects for agriculture in 2015-16 depend very much on the actual performance of monsoon. The India Meteorological Department released its first official forecast for the southwest monsoon in April 2015. It predicted that rainfall is likely to be 93 per cent of the Long Period Average with a model error of ± 5 per cent. The likely date of monsoon’s arrival is expected to be June 1, which suggests timely arrival.
  • The outlook for the industry and services sector is mixed. The industry sector is likely to gain from government initiatives like Make in India, skill development, FDI reforms, unblocking of various stalled projects etc. Specific industries like the IT-BPM (Information Technology-Business Processing Management industry) may provide the much needed fillip to the services sector.
  • World Trade volume is likely to improve with differences in outlook for advance economies and emerging market and developing economies. India may benefit with increase in world growth. Given that growth in Asia, where most of our merchandise trade is directed, is weak, merchandise trade prospects appear muted for India. On the other hand, services trade has a positive outlook, with improvement in outlook for advanced economies. Overall current account deficit is predicted to remain sustainable, well under two per cent.
  • Inflation outlook is muted due to dampened oil prices, which are predicted to remain low for the current fiscal. However, if there is deficient monsoon again in the current fiscal, food inflation may be affected.

For queries related to subscription to NCAER’s Quarterly Review of the Economy publication, you can email us at infor@ncaer.org

Addressing Infrastructure Deficits and Transforming Finance in Asia

Please join us for the third in the series of five lectures on the Asian Century by NCAER Distinguished Fellow, Mr Rajat M. Nag. Much of Asia is still plagued by severe physical infrastructure deficits. This lecture will address the important challenges of meeting such infrastructure deficits, both hard and soft, and how they could be financed from both public and private sources. Institutional arrangements for meeting the infrastructure challenges in Asia, including through public private partnerships will be discussed.  As Asia’s share in the global economy grows, it should also have proportionately similar shares of financial assets to efficiently recycle and allocate its huge savings and foreign reserves. The lecture will discuss how this transformation will unfold and also address the important aspects of financial inclusion.

In the Asian Century Lectures, Rajat Nag examines the challenges that Asia must confront and the opportunities it must exploit to make this century the Asian Century, a proposition that he argues is plausible but not inevitable. In his first lecture, Nag spoke about the need to pursue an inclusive growth strategy to meet the challenges of rising inequality in Asia. The second lecture covered the demographics of Asia and the need for high productivity jobs. The remaining two lectures over the next few months will cover regional cooperation and integration and the competition for natural resources and governance, institutions, and green growth.

      Rajat Nag is the former Managing Director-General of the Asian Development Bank and now a Distinguished Fellow at NCAER. He is currently also the Chair of the Look East Council of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, a Visiting Professor at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, and a Senior Fellow at the Emerging Markets Forum, Washington, DC.  Mr Nag began his professional career at the Bank of Canada, and held senior positions in international consulting before joining the ADB. He has engineering degrees from IIT, Delhi and the University of Saskatchewan. He also has an MBA from the University of Saskatchewan and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

For up-to-date information on the Asian Century Lectures, please visit www.ncaer.org.

Please join us for high tea after the lecture. For queries, please contact Ms Sudesh Bala at sbala@ncaer.org, or on 91-11-2345-2669.

Addressing Infrastructure Deficits and Transforming Finance in Asia

Please join us for the third in the series of five lectures on the Asian Century by NCAER Distinguished Fellow, Mr Rajat M. Nag. Much of Asia is still plagued by severe physical infrastructure deficits. This lecture will address the important challenges of meeting such infrastructure deficits, both hard and soft, and how they could be financed from both public and private sources. Institutional arrangements for meeting the infrastructure challenges in Asia, including through public private partnerships will be discussed.  As Asia’s share in the global economy grows, it should also have proportionately similar shares of financial assets to efficiently recycle and allocate its huge savings and foreign reserves. The lecture will discuss how this transformation will unfold and also address the important aspects of financial inclusion.

In the Asian Century Lectures, Rajat Nag examines the challenges that Asia must confront and the opportunities it must exploit to make this century the Asian Century, a proposition that he argues is plausible but not inevitable. In his first lecture, Nag spoke about the need to pursue an inclusive growth strategy to meet the challenges of rising inequality in Asia. The second lecture covered the demographics of Asia and the need for high productivity jobs. The remaining two lectures over the next few months will cover regional cooperation and integration and the competition for natural resources and governance, institutions, and green growth.

Rajat Nag is the former Managing Director-General of the Asian Development Bank and now a Distinguished Fellow at NCAER. He is currently also the Chair of the Look East Council of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, a Visiting Professor at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, and a Senior Fellow at the Emerging Markets Forum, Washington, DC.  Mr Nag began his professional career at the Bank of Canada, and held senior positions in international consulting before joining the ADB. He has engineering degrees from IIT, Delhi and the University of Saskatchewan. He also has an MBA from the University of Saskatchewan and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

For up-to-date information on the Asian Century Lectures, please visit www.ncaer.org.

Please join us for high tea after the lecture. For queries, please contact Ms Sudesh Bala at sbala@ncaer.org, or on 91-11-2345-2669.

Do Mothers have Enough Time to feed their Children?: Effect of Maternal Time use on Child Nutrition in Bangladesh

By accounting for seasonality, income, and education, Dr Monica Jain’s research reveals some of the factors that constrain women’s time use – and some surprising factors that don’t – to understand what may shape women’s ability to provide adequate complementary feeding.

Complementary child feeding practices that complement breast feeding are poor in Bangladesh and have improved minimally over time, especially for children 6-23 months. One hypothesis frequently proposed is that mothers in Bangladesh do not have enough time for adequate complementary feeding. We test this using panel data on time use of women across three agricultural seasons in 1996-97. We find that women spend around two hours a day on exclusive child care, which does not vary significantly by income, education or agricultural season although boys are favored. In the higher intensity agricultural season the majority of women reduce their time spent on cooking. Women also combine child care with their other work for more than two hours every day; the extent of multi-tasking does not differ by education level or the gender composition of children. Married women 15-49 years old themselves eat less when they spend less time on cooking, and the effect is stronger for those with children under 5 years. For the male head in these households the effect is smaller in magnitude and less robust. Women’s cooking time does not affect the food consumption of their children either 6-23 or 24-59 months old, but there is some evidence of discrimination in favor of boys. Exclusive child care time has no effect on food consumption of children 6-23 months old, but there is some evidence of a negative effect on food consumption of children 24-59 months and on girls. Multi-tasking child care time has no consistent effect on food intake of children either by age or gender. Maternal time on work outside home has a positive effect on their own food consumption and somewhat on their sons’ food consumption.

Time use is one of many drivers of poor complementary feeding practices. Knowledge, income, and access to the right kinds of foods also influence complementary feeding.

Monica Jain is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.  Her research focuses on poverty and development issues including health and nutrition, labor, education, and governance. She has previously worked at The World Bank, New Delhi, and interned at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC. She has a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Riverside, and an MPhil and Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.

Women Workers in India: Why so Few Among so Many?

At this seminar, Sonali Jain-Chandra and Sonali Das from IMF, presented a paper that examines the determinants of female labor force participation in India, against the backdrop of one of the lowest female participation rates  among its peers. Using extensive Indian household survey data, the paper models the labor force participation choices of women, conditional on demographic characteristics and education, as well as looking at the influence of state-level labor market flexibility and other state policies. The main finding is that a number of policy initiatives can help boost female economic participation in the states of India, including increased labor market flexibility, investment in infrastructure, and enhanced social spending. Rinku Murgai, Lead Economist from the World Bank, as the discussant for the seminar, took forward the conversations with the audience.

Sonali Jain-Chandra is Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department. She has wide-ranging country experience on India, Korea, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal and Bhutan. She was also a member of the Regional Studies Division and has often contributed to the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook. Prior to her current assignment, she worked in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review departments on vulnerabilities in emerging markets and advanced economies. Her research focuses on labor markets, capital flows, international banking linkages, and financial inclusion. She holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University, a BA and MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a BA in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi.
Sonali Das is an Economist in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, where she focuses on India and Nepal. Previously, she was in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, where she worked on the IMF program with Pakistan and policy papers on the international monetary system. Prior to joining the IMF in 2012, Sonali interned at the Brookings Institution, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, as well as the IMF. She received her PhD in Economics from Cornell University, an MA in Economics from McGill University, and a BSc from the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in banking, financial interconnectedness, and economic development.
Rinku Murgai is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Global Practice of the World Bank.  Rinku joined the World Bank in 2000 as a Young Professional, with assignments in the South Asia Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit and the Research Department.  In 2003, she relocated to the New Delhi office and has been working in India since then.  She has a keen interest and analytic skills in the general areas of poverty, vulnerability and public policy, encompassing poverty and inequality measurement. In her work at the World Bank, Rinku has had the opportunity to contribute to poverty assessments, development policy reviews, impact evaluations, operations, and Country Partnership Strategies. She has worked closely with government on issues related to poverty monitoring, strengthening of statistical systems, and design and M&E of safety nets. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Economics from Swarthmore College, and a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

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