Archives: Publication
Macro Track May 2013
Macroeconomy: Where are the Jobs?
Continued economic slowdown has a very real impact, i.e., on jobs.
Gender: Gender Inequality and Women Political Participation in India
Gender inequality is one of the most deep-rooted forms of inequality in a traditional society such as India.
External: Gold: Safe Haven
In times of crisis, people turn to the safest saving that one may have and for Indians that is gold.
Exports of Services: Indian Experience in Perspective
Purpose – This paper aims to survey India’s experience with exporting services. The authors seek to show that the country’s experience is unique in that modern tradable services are a significantly larger share of GDP than in other countries at comparable levels of economic development. This has not always been the case, however; India’s out-performance is limited to recent years. Policy initiatives, from trade reform to liberalization of domestic industrial and service sectors, were important for jump-starting the process.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews the literature and evidence. It takes a close look at the Indian service sector and specifically information-technology-related (IT) services, seeking to situate the growth in service exports from India in its comparative context. The authors document the role that exports of services have played in the performance of the Indian economy in recent years. They seek to pinpoint the “take-off” in Indian services output and establish the extent to which the country’s success in exporting services is exceptional from an international point of view. And they discuss the extent to which India’s performance as an exporter of services has been shaped by policies liberalizing the service sector itself and by liberalization of the manufacturing sector.
Findings – Panel and country-specific regressions for a cross section of countries point to the importance of a range of additional factors: overall economic development, communications infrastructure, access to foreign technology, and spillovers between the merchandise and service exports. Importantly, however, these factors, jointly or individually, do not wipe out the significance of a dummy variable for India. India, evidently, is a significant outlier as an exporter of services, and even more so as the period proceeds.
Originality/value – The paper discusses the country’s major policy initiatives, such as trade reforms and liberalization of domestic industrial and service sectors, and their importance for jump-starting the process of services growth and its exports. Regression results show that, in addition to these policies, other factors such as overall economic development, communications infrastructure, access to foreign technology, and spillovers between the merchandise and service exports were important as well.
Quarterly Review of the Economy (QRE) Seminar Coverage
The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its April 2013 Quarterly Review of the Economy has projected that the Indian economy would grow at 6.2 per cent in 2013-14 led by a reasonable growth in agriculture.
For this year the think tank projected agriculture sector growth at 3.2 per cent against a growth of 1.8 per cent in 2012-13 as per Advance Estimates. In its January forecast it had projected the growth at 2.9 per cent.
The NCAER has slightly lowered its projection for industry growth from 4.5 per cent estimated in the last quarter to 4.4 per cent in the latest estimates while the forecast for services was left unchanged at 7.7 per cent. As a result the projection for overall growth its the latest review is the same as that of the preliminary estimates in its quarterly review in January 2013.
The April Quarterly review said that there is revival of merchandise export growth in the fourth quarter of 2012–13 particularly led by a few.jpg)
commodities including petroleum products oil cakes gems and jewellery engineering goods and cotton yarn. It expects exports to reach a value of $23.9 billion in 2013-14 and estimates imports will touch $15.8 billion.
The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) had estimated the growth rate to be 6.4 per cent in 2013-14 saying that the decline in economic growth had bottomed out.
For the previous financial year the NCAER had projected the economy to grow at 5.6 per cent though the official estimates show that the economy grew at 5 per cent the slowest pace since 2002-03.
Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation for 2012-13 is projected at 7.7 per cent year-on-year. Inflation in 2013-14 is projected to be 5.9 per cent higher than its projection of 5 per cent in January 2013.The review said that the reduction in Cash Reserve Ratio by 50 basis points in January 2013 has helped the commercial banks in reducing the lower end of base rates in February 2013 from 9.75 per cent to 9.5 per cent.
The review has also projected the Centre’s fiscal deficit this financial year to be 5 per cent of the GDP higher than the government’s target of 4.8 per cent. Though the 2012-13 revised estimates of the fiscal deficit was 5.2 per cent the Centre was able to contain the fiscal deficit at 5.2 per cent. The current account deficit is projected to be 3.5 per cent of the GDP higher from its January 2013 projection of 3.2 per cent.
Macro Track April 2013
Business Expectations: FY 2012-13 Ends with Lower Busines Sentiments
Forecast: Re-assessing the Macroeconomic Scene for 2013-14
Infrastructure: India’s Aviation Sector during FY 2012-13: A Closer View