Nirvikar Singh

Job creation: Here’s a development mantra for India

Indian economic policy has not allowed firms to be created and to grow and prosper at the levels required for adequate job creation.
Investing in creating good jobs

Financial sector reforms have to be governed by the goal of increasing the flow of funds to productive and efficient firms, those which can create good jobs by investing well.
Job growth in India: Development means creating good jobs

Job growth in India that accompanies output growth is anaemic, although not absent. We need to focus on the process of creating jobs in which workers are more productive.
Does Sagarmala need to be garland at all?

In my last column, on “good jobs” for India, I noted the importance of scale and complementarities in creating such jobs, and the possibility of focusing on coastal economic zones (CEZs), an idea from Chinese experience that has been articulated by Arvind Panagariya, the former vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog.
Creating good jobs for India: Why economic policy has to involve a detailed implementation plan

The basic economic insights are obvious, but tend to get lost in discussions of formal versus informal sector and self-employment versus employment by another person or organisation.
Budget 2018: Reintroduction of LTCG tax on equities may dampen some froth

Budget 2018: The reintroduction of the long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax on equities may dampen some froth, but if the real economy stays strong, the impact of the tax may just be a little extra revenue for the government.
Why there are not enough Indian firms that are serving India’s middle class

Recently, The Economist magazine featured a prominent article on India’s missing middle class. One point made in the piece was that income distribution in India has become more unequal, and the gains from economic growth have gone disproportionately to the richest 10% of the population.
Why India needs to grow faster

Else, it will grow slower, as the current rates are not an equilibrium. With the lack of enough good jobs, conflict will derail present growth
How to get India’s macroeconomic, microeconomic policies right

An experiment in a single school in a poor area of Delhi showed that the right software can aid learning dramatically. Software can be customised and adaptive to a student’s level and even transitory states.
Keeping Richard Thaler in mind, here is how to make sound economic policy in India

Behavioural nudges may be a part of good economic policymaking, but much more will be involved. Tweets, even if it is a Thaler that sends them, will add nothing.
From toilets to household finance, this is what successful reform really requires

Economic reform in India has to be about much more than freeing up the market, or getting prices right. Clearly, a horrendously inefficient indirect tax system and inordinately restrictive labour market regulations are two examples where the usual themes are relevant.
Household finance in India: What a shift from informal to formal sector borrowing requires

Finance occupies an awkward place in present-day economic thinking. Much of economic analysis abstracts away from the role that financial intermediation plays in the allocation of resources.
Renewables vs coal power: Why that is a diversion from the real issue

India is now enthusiastically on board with this effort, and has promised to ramp up installation of capacity for electricity generation from renewable sources such as solar and wind.
What are key drivers of economic growth in India: what you really must know about the major tools at work

Last month, the Center for International Development at Harvard University made news with its prediction that India will be an important future growth pole for the world economy.
For real financial inclusion, JAM is important, but here is why focus should be on reforming PSBs

Institutional innovation is just as important as technological innovation; so while JAM is important, focus on reforming PSBs.
India and US ties: Here is how to target larger payoffs than just investments

The recent US visit of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi garnered an unusual amount of media attention, perhaps because US president Donald Trump himself is more of a media celebrity than a working politician.
Modi-fied growth vision: Current reforms model is still pro-business than pro-market, albeit with touch of inclusiveness

The current government has controlled the worst excesses of corruption that flourished in the last years of the UPA, also a type of “pro-business” orientation, but a damaging one of crony capitalism.
Political economy structures perpetuate myopic understanding of agriculture sector

A half-dozen years ago, I participated in a conference on water resource challenges in India. I remember Upmanu Lall, professor at Columbia University, graphically and bluntly making the point that Punjab’s water table was not far from collapse.
State finances: If GST successful, demonetisation effect wears off, optimism of RBI report will be borne out

If GST is as successful as is hoped, and if the demonetisation shock also wears off quickly, it is possible that the relative optimism of the RBI report will be borne out.
Global conditions rife for rise of 2 nations as superpowers – India, China; here’s is what we must do

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the world is dominated by three “super-states,” Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.
Supply chain finance: The Indian approach is outdated

A rapid increase in options for small firms, and intermediaries willing to take on risk will put pressure on the large firms that abuse the smaller suppliers.
India’s leaders have failed its people, but in education, the people may have a chance to grow beyond what leaders have allowed

In my last column, I argued that Indian higher education needs reinvention as well as reform. The supply constraints that have built up in the current system will not be relaxed quickly enough by reforming current governance and regulatory institutions.
What to do about higher education in India: A complement to repairing the dysfunctions can be its reinvention

Kapur and Mehta’s basic thesis is that India’s higher education system suffers from over-regulation and deficient governance.
Beyond UP elections 2017: India must raise more revenue from income and property taxes vs sales taxes

India must raise more revenue from income and property taxes versus sales taxes.
Bank crisis: Until stressed assets dealt with, economic growth in India will be choked off

RBI Deputy Governor, Viral Acharya’s solution is worth describing in detail, even if one is repeating his ideas, because his points need to be driven home with urgency.
Assessing Budget 2017: Narendra Modi govt has vision, political space to act on economic front

The initial reaction to this year’s Union Budget, presented a month earlier than in past years, was one of relief: there were no announcements that spelled trouble for India’s growth story.
Budget 2017: Infrastructure spending, bank recap crucial

The debt overhang at the banks, if allowed to continue, could hobble growth for years

Budget 2018

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