National Council of Applied Economic Research
For making better macro policies it is vital to track policy developments in the country; monitor global developments of relevance to India; and, understand the pulse of the economy.
India was an outlier on fiscal outcomes pre-pandemic, before drifting further in the high debt direction during COVID. High levels of debt limit the resources available for other priorities such as health, education and climate change abatement. At the same time, there is no immediate crisis of debt sustainability: institutional factors limit rollover risk, and... Read More
Emerging markets and developing economies are currently facing major challenges from global shocks including: a slowdown in global growth; food and energy price increases; decline in risk appetite of international investors; unsustainable debts in low-income countries; and ongoing climate risks. National policies have not sufficed to meet these challenges. Efforts at the national level must... Read More
In the Review, we summarise the economic and policy developments in India; monitor global developments of relevance to India; and showcase the pulse of the economy through an analysis of high-frequency indicators and the heat map. See the previous issues:
Banks play a critical role in economic growth. In India, the banking sector, dominated by public sector banks (PSBs), has underserved the economy and their stakeholders. The under-performance of PSBs has persisted despite several policy initiatives during the past decade. Meanwhile, private banks have further improved their performance and have gained significant market share. In... Read More
We review arguments for CBDC issuance in India. These include facilitating payments, enhancing financial inclusion, enabling the central bank and government to retain control of the payments system, facilitating cross-border payments, reducing dependence on the dollar-dominated global payments system, providing an encompassing platform for digital financial innovation. We then compare progress in India with other... Read More
In this paper, we analyze the deep and anomalous economic slowdown in 2019-20, when the Indian economy grew at a rate of 4 percent, the lowest in a decade. We argue that the slowdown was largely confined to one year, 2019-20. The growth rate in the prior years averaged at 7 percent a year, and... Read More
On November 3, 2021, the Federal Open Market Committee announced that it would reduce the scale of its asset purchases by $15 billion a month starting immediately. Do emerging markets, such as India, need to prepare for a replay of the taper tantrum of 2013? We show that emerging markets, including India, have strengthened their... Read More
Before making any policy intervention, it is important to estimate the overall logistics costs, including the various associated components/elements in order to understand and identify the problem areas and arrive at meaningful solutions. This NCAER report symbolises a major step in the direction of quantification of logistics costs. Such an exercise, in fact, needs to... Read More
High Logistics Costs in India compared to countries with similar environment & state of development are matter of concern for manufacturing growth and comprehensive development of the country. Several reasons are often cited for high logistics costs namely, unfavourable policy regime, lack of multimodal transport system (heavy reliance on road transport), fragmented Storage infrastructure, presence... Read More
NCAER has been tracking the business confidence of Indian firms through a quarterly Business Expectations Survey since 1991. The survey provides an assessment of the present conditions and short-term prospects for India’s business environment based on responses from more than 500 companies in six metropolitan cities in India. The survey includes information on firm characteristics,... Read More
Poonam Gupta is the Director General of NCAER, and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. Before joining NCAER, she was the Lead Economist for Global Macro and Market Research at the International Finance Corporation and a Lead Economist for India at the World Bank. Prior to that, she was the Reserve... Read More
Arvind Panagariya is Professor of Economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. From January 2015 to August 2017, he served as the first Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog, Government of India in the rank of a Cabinet Minister. He simultaneously... Read More
Barry Eichengreen is George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic... Read More
Ayesha Ahmed is working at NCAER as a Research Associate. While her interests are eclectic, she is most interested in working on issues related to macro-economics, international trade, public finance, inflation, and monetary policy. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Miranda House and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Delhi School of... Read More
Priyadarshini has a Master’s degree in International Economics from the University of Nottingham, UK, and a Master’s degree in Economics from BITS Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). Her current research interests lie in international economics and finance, international trade, and political economy. She has previously worked as an intern, an analyst, and as Assistant Vice President at... Read More
Akansha Atal is working as a Research Associate. While her interests are diverse, she is most interested in working on primary and secondary research. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi and a Master’s Degree in Economics from School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Piyali Majumder is an Associate Fellow at NCAER. She completed her Ph.D. and M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She did her M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Economics from University of Calcutta. Her areas of interest are International Trade, Environmental Economics, Advanced Econometrics, and Spatial Econometrics. She has worked at various teaching and research institutions including Indian Institute... Read More
Jayanta Talukder is an Associate Fellow in the National Growth and Macroeconomic Centre at NCAER. He has recently completed his Ph.D. from University at Albany, Suny, New York. He has Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Economics from Jadavpur University and the University of Calcutta, respectively. He has also worked at various research and teaching institutions,... Read More
Swapnanil Sengupta as a Research Associate in the National Growth and Macroeconomic Centre. Mr. Sengupta has double Master’s degree in Economics and Financial Economics from the Universities of Tübingen, Germany and Manchester, UK, respectively. He did his Bachelors’ degree in Economics from the University of Burdwan, West Bengal. He has worked as a Research Intern... Read More
Navya Srivastava is working as a Research Associate. She has a Master’s degree in International Economics with Development Economics from the Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland. Prior to joining NCAER, she worked as an Intern at the World Trade Organisation, Switzerland and Ernst & Young, India.
Shubhashree Jha is a Research Associate in the National Growth and Macroeconomic Centre at NCAER. She has a PG Diploma in Economics from Ashoka University. She also received her Bachelors’ degree in Economics and Finance from Ashoka University. She has earlier worked as a Visiting Research Scholar at the National Bank of Slovakia; as a Teaching... Read More
