वित्त मंत्रालय के तहत एक स्वायत्त अनुसंधान संस्थान

 

Ongoing projects

Impact of Fossil Fuel Price Change

  • Completion date जून, 2022
  • Sponsor Self-Initiated
  • Project leader Mukesh Kumar Anand
  • Consultants/Other authors Rahul Chakraborty
  • Focus
    Supplemental information from National Income Accounts on final consumption expenditure, indirect taxes, and value addition are utilized to generate an updated set of Input-Output (I-O) coefficients for the year 2018-19. For this update the RAS method is applied on two starting solutions, one each using I-O transactions tables for 1998-99 and 2007-08. The analysis reveals little change in intensity of cost-push inflation from forward transmission of the rise in fossil fuel prices.

Declining Labour Force Participation in India: Are Certain Policies Misaligned?

  • Completion date जुलाई, 2022
  • Sponsor Self-Initiated
  • Project leader Mukesh Kumar Anand
  • Consultants/Other authors Rahul Chakraborty
  • Focus
    The paper argues that there is weak, negligible or conjectural evidence to support several of the reasons offered by commentators pertaining to the Indian labour market, e.g., on lower female labour-force participation due to: (i) increased within-household demand on available time for care work (including fetching water) or (ii) improvement in spousal income. Further, in the absence of objectively designed metrics, there is only anecdotal evidence on mismatch in skills or so-called skill-deficit. The paper proposes that: (a) labour demand is depressed due to (i) threshold centric approach to labour legislations, that result in steep changes in marginal cost of labour, and (ii) unequal tax treatment of returns to factors that motivates allocating higher value addition to capital (to minimize one’s tax liability), whereas (b) labour supply is adversely affected by loosely anchored expectations from: (i) segmented labour markets that, in turn, are an outcome of thresholds in labour legislations, and (ii) a minimum wage determination process that ignores both the job description and the desired worker profile for an entry-level worker.

Why Determination of Minimum Pay in the Public Sector Should Consider Job Description and Corresponding Employee Profile?

  • Completion date सितम्बर., 2022
  • Sponsor Self-Initiated
  • Project leader Mukesh Kumar Anand
  • Consultants/Other authors Rahul Chakraborty
  • Focus
    The Central Pay Commission determines minimum pay by considering an average (desirable) consumption basket for three person consumption units. However, their approach ignores the minimum requirements as given in the job description at the entry level to evolve a basic profile of the lowest level recruit. The profile of the ‘successful’ recruit then is likely to drift towards the one utilized in the actual pay determination, and not what the job description considers as adequate/ sufficient. In this paper, the desired attributes of the lowest level entrant detailed under ‘qualifications and requirements’ and the consumption expenditure data from the National Sample Survey Office are utilized to reconfigure minimum pay. It is argued that such rationalization in procedures is extremely important, as these procedures impact the build-up of wage expectations and, in turn, impact labour force participation.

Public Spending, Governance, and Regional Disparity in Sustainable Development: A District-Level Analysis in Assam

  • Start date मार्च, 2022
  • Completion date मार्च, 2024
  • Sponsor Indian Council of Social Science Research
  • Project leader Bhabesh Hazarika
  • Focus
    Among the various axes of inequalities in India, regional disparity has gained importance in recent times. Not only is Assam less developed than other mainstream Indian states, but there are also wide disparities within the state. Assam has been active in terms of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by developing SDG-aligned Vision Documents, adopting customized State Indicator Frameworks, and creating SDG cells and dedicated institutional structures. However, the North Eastern Region (NER) District SDG Index Report and Dashboard 2021-22 reveals that there has been a considerable disparity in the status of SDGs across the districts in Assam. It is, thus, crucial to understand what drives such inter-district divergences – to know why some districts have better outcomes while others have poor SDG achievements. Does an increase in public expenditure directly impact improving SDG outcomes, especially at the district level? What role does good governance play in explaining such variation? The proposed study attempts to analyse the role of public expenditure and quality of governance in explaining the divergence of SDGs achievement across districts, which has important implications for policy prescriptions. This is crucial as the district is the implementing unit when it comes to social sector spending. Moreover, the fiscal space of Assam is weak due to stagnation in revenue. In such a situation, good governance and quality public spending would be critical in bridging the widening developmental gaps.

Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Assessment for Uttarakhand

  • Start date अप्रैल, 2023
  • Completion date जनवरी., 2024
  • Sponsor Government of Uttarakhand
  • Project leader Pratap Ranjan Jena
  • Other faculty Dinesh Nayak
  • Consultants/Other authors Abhishek Singh
  • Focus
    The NIPFP proposes to carry out the project Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment for the state of Uttarakhand. The assessment will follow the established PEFA assessment methodology. The study will show the strengths and weaknesses of the public financial management (PFM) system in Uttarakhand and in the process will help authorities to take appropriate policy measures.