Agriculture in India

Mahendra Dev, Srijit Mishra, and Vijaylaxmi Pandey contextualize Indian agriculture by an evaluation of its performance, with a focus on the roles, challenges and opportunities for small holders. They observe a turn-around over 2004/5–2010/1 compared to the immediate post-reforms period, which had witnessed stagnation in comparison to the pre-reforms period. Public policy initiatives on investment, research, extension and credit and a set of good monsoons were among the reasons for improvement. But livelihood sustainability of smallholder farmers is a matter of concern. Even so, there are opportunities to reduce costs and risks and use low external input sustainable agriculture without compromising on production. There were sharp peaks in agricultural prices that contributed to inflation. But after prices moderated with export prices, there was severe small farmer distress. The supply response has to keep up with demand growth without excessive inflation even as the population dependent on agriculture shrinks.

New Sources of Dynamism in the Industry

Bandi Ram Prasad places the canvas of Indian industry in relation to the financial sector. Reforms gave much needed impetus to industries with opportunities to pursue growth, diversification and global expansion even as policy support, changing dynamics of global manufacturing, and financial reforms emerged as new sources of dynamism. The rapid expansion of India’s financial sector in terms of reach of institutions, products, domestic and foreign financial flows have had significant impact on financing of the Indian industry- from the corporate sector in the conventional economy to the new infrastructure projects to the start-ups, though concerns continue to exist in terms of inadequate financial flows to small businesses and SMEs that have greater potential for employment generation in the context of bank NPAs. The focus on finance raises interesting issues such as risks from volatilities arising from global geopolitics and the scope for domestic policy to evolve alternatives to ensure sustained financial flows to industry.

Poverty and Inequality

Raghabendra Jha and Anurag Sharma point out despite twenty years of accelerated growth, the persistence of mass poverty, perceived rising inequality, and their spatial variation cause disquiet. The accuracy of yardsticks that show improvement is questioned. Adequacy of nutrition, the traditional rationale for the poverty line, has not recorded impressive gains. The best means of lowering poverty, which reforms have not achieved, is to create mass scale jobs for poor and unskilled workers. The chapter advances suggestions for this and for better targeting of anti-poverty interventions. Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfers and attempts to expand low-skilled manufacturing in India are therefore hopeful signs.

A Governance Analysis of Transportation in India

Sriraman attempts to understand the impact of the governance structure in the Indian context on the provision of transport infrastructure and services. Government owned railways have taken some initiatives to promote freight movement in a big way by the establishment of dedicated corridors with a different model of investment and operation. Equally significant are the initiatives taken up by the different transport related Ministries to promote multi-modalism which involves a change in governance structure. The issue is whether there can be effective implementation of these policy initiatives given continuing poor practices and deviation from an ideal institutional governance framework. One other issue discussed critically relates to the effective implementation of planning and operating of information technology practices in the context of smart cities that are being encouraged in a background of poor urban physical infrastructure.

Reforms and Global Economic Integration of the Indian Economy

Nagesh Kumar brings out the reforms pursued since 1991 have deepened global integration of the Indian economy. Opportunities for product and market diversification remain to be fully exploited to sustain export growth and create more jobs. Despite healthy trade surpluses earned by services as India emerged as a global hub for ICT outsourcing, the balance of payment situation continues to face occasional pressures related to oil prices fluctuations. Export competitiveness needs to be strengthened through appropriate exchange rate management and opportunities for strategic import substitution need to be exploited by leveraging India’s large domestic market size using industrial policy measures, such as Make-in-India. While farsighted policies have led India becoming a part of emerging broader regional economic arrangement, Indian industry has yet to learn to exploit the opportunities provided by preferential access to East Asian markets rather than passively grant market access.

Fiscal and Monetary Policy

Romar Correa continues to use the Godley-Cripps (1983) stock-flow-consistent (SFC) framework in this update to refine the thesis that the monetary authority is the ‘handmaiden’ of the fiscal authority. The bank, commercial and central being indistinguishable, is central to the account. A revitalized ‘real bills doctrine’ is proposed. The deleterious consequences of promoting the alternative, ‘financialization’ are traced.

Monetary Policy Transmission in India

K. Kanagasabapathy, Rekha A. Bhangaonkar, and Shruti Pandey address the issue whether the rate and quantum channels were complementary to each other over the period April 2001 to December 2017. Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy framework is characterized by use of multiple instruments combining adjustments in policy rate with a complex use of liquidity management operations, despite changes in the functioning of the monetary policy. They study easing and tightening phases of the policy cycle and bring out stylized facts on several relationships highlighting the impact of policy rate changes and liquidity conditions on short and medium term market interest rates and output and prices. An empirical analysis confirmed the linkage between the repo rate and the market related rates. On the quantum side, a bi-causal relationship is observed between repo and liquidity. Money and financial transmission market transmission is better established than that to the real sector. Shruti Pandey and K. Kanagasabapathy have worked on the revised version for the new edition.

The Financial Sector in India

Rajesh Chakrabarti gives an overview of the financial sector in India. For him a financial system is akin to the circulatory system in the human body, tapping and transporting savings throughout the economy, with markets and banks being the two competing and complementary arteries. The Indian financial system ranks slightly below the median in World Economic Forum rankings but has virtually re-booted since the still ongoing liberalization started in 1991. The four pillars of a financial system—laws, technology, creditors’ rights and corporate governance—have all undergone and are still undergoing major transformations. Financial access and inclusion remain key challenges despite serious efforts and experimentation. The banking system is stable, public-sector dominated, fragmented and heavily regulated. Financial markets have witnessed a sea-change but still have limited liquidity. The corporate bond market—key for much-needed infrastructure financing—remains seriously underdeveloped. The regulatory system is fragmented, rule-based and generally speaking quite conservative. Globalization of the financial system has been steadily increasing with time and while not the most innovation-friendly in the world, it has succeeded in providing stability and averting crises in an increasingly turbulent global financial environment. Aadhaar and big-data based fintech has the potential for inclusive innovations. The chapter’s focus on the institutional and legal base brings out the deep seated transformational changes taking place that perhaps need more time to fructify in increasing domestic savings, allocating them better while reducing the cost of credit, improving its availability and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Promoting Special Economic Zones as a Strategy of Industrialization and Lessons Learned

Aradhna Aggarwal in examining the formation and evolution of SEZ policy and its contribution to Indian industrialization over different phases draws lessons for new policies. Contextual solutions require experimentation, but continuity of government support over the political cycles is also essential. Commercial sustainability with some legal backing may be the way for policy consistency, making special initiatives independent of the government. To the extent special concessions are given, some sunset clause, or else use of competition, and appropriate regulation to prevent rent-seeking, would be required. Tax concessions could be reduced as other constraints ease. A CAG report that highlighted the large tax losses, and the large percentage of unutilized land in SEZs, points to the necessity of both proper design and implementation. But a blind anti-industry position is counterproductive when employment generation is the way to reduce poverty. Strategic vision and dynamic learning must combine with a political will to implement.

Caste, Class, Gender

Ashwini Deshpande argues the translation and impact of momentous post reform changes on inter-group disparities has been uneven. Caste inequality shows very strong inter-state variation and some convergence, but no clear relationship between growth and convergence. Gender wage gaps are substantial, despite the reduction in the average gender wage gap for regular wage and salaried employees over the last decade, and these are greater for the lower part of the wage distribution. A decomposition of these gaps between ‘explained’ and ‘residual’ indicates the discriminatory component is greater among the bottom four wage deciles, indicating the presence of a ‘sticky floor’, rather than a ‘glass ceiling’ for women. While poverty incidence has reduced, class inequality has increased sharply, which has fuelled a protracted armed insurgency in large parts of the country.