An autonomous research institute under the Ministry of Finance

 

Why Output Gap is controversial

28/12/2020

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(Co-authored with Amandeep Kaur)

 

The macroeconomic uncertainty in times of COVID-19 pandemic is hard to measure. Economists and policymakers use the variable “output gap” to capture the “slack”. It is a deviation between potential output and actual output, which is a standard representation of a “cycle”. The potential output ...

Agriculture as a shock-absorber

14/12/2020

The slew of agricultural reforms initiated by the government has led to a vigorous discussion in the media about the pros and cons of these policy changes. Most of these discussions have focussed on agriculture as an activity that provides farmers with a regular source of income. The arguments have ...

A Case for Safe Drinking Water In Boosting Infant Nutrition In India

26/11/2020

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(co-authored with Debasri Mukherjee)
 
The developing world has succeeded in significantly reducing the prevalence of under-nourishment over the last three decades compared to India [See Figure 1]. However, during this time the share of wasted (having low weight-for-height) children in India has remained around 20 percent. The known causes ...

Reviving the Indian Economy

12/11/2020

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The Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the demand for consumer goods has increased considerably during the festival months. October-to-March is the festival season in India. Based on the “Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI)”, the Finance Minister said that the “economic activity had picked up in ...

The Role of Public and Private Healthcare services in Covid Testing and Treatment

23/10/2020

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(Co-authored with Mita Choiudhury)
 
In a public health emergency, the role of the government is expected to be dominant as private provisioning is likely to be sub-optimal. Yet, in a health system, which is largely dominated by the private sector, a public-private interplay is inevitable. In this article, we ...