The Impact of Macroeconomic Change on Employment in the Retail Sector in India: Policy Implications for Growth, Sectoral Change and Employment
May 15th 2008, Jayati Ghosh, Amitayu Sengupta &
Anamitra Roychoudhury
This study is concerned with the employment situation in India’s retail sector. High economic growth in India has not produced satisfactory outcomes of job growth, both in terms of quantity and quality. Concern has arisen that many of the working poor engaged in small-scale retailing and street vending are crowded by entries of large-scale domestic as well as foreign retailers. Share of workers’ income in manufacturing has also seen a decline, despite labour productivity growth, during the last decade. This paper argues that economic policy in India needs to be made more inclusive and equitable. The only sure way of doing so would be making it more pro-job and pro-poor, through examining employment implications of macro policies that accompany economic liberalization.
Farmers' Suicides in India: Magnitudes, Trends and Spatial Patterns
Mar 3rd 2008, K. Nagaraj

Given the very large number of suicides by farmers in various parts of India over the last decade, there is a need to probe the issue by utilizing a data source which would provide a comprehensive, nation-wide picture. This paper is a modest attempt to fill that gap. Its basic objective is to put together, and carry out a preliminary analysis on, the secondary data that are available on farmers’ suicides in the country. The paper studies, first, the magnitude and trends in farmers’ suicides in India over 1997-2006; and second, the regional patterns, if any, in the incidence and trends in these suicides.

Private Equity: A New Role for Finance?
May 22nd 2007, C. P. Chandrasekhar

Given that a substantial proportion of companies in Asian developing countries are either unlisted or have a small proportion of free-floating shares, the surge in investments by private equity firms suggests that foreign acquisitions could increase in the region sharply. With foreign investors controlling a rising share of total assets, the ability of domestic forces and the domestic State to influence the pattern and pace of growth of domestic economic activity would be substantially eroded.

Indian Economy in the Era of Contemporary Globalisation: Some Core Elements of the Balance Sheet
May 17th 2007, Praveen Jha & Mario Negre

In recent years, the ‘official’ India has been patting itself on account of accelerated economic growth rates and the presumed progress in poverty reduction. However, as this paper argues, the recent economic growth has been extremely lopsided; more than ever before. Further, large sections of the country’s population continue to suffer, very acutely, with reference to a whole range of development deficits. This paper is an attempt to sketch a snapshot of India’s economic growth performance, along with some of the major development deficits it is facing.

The Progress of "Reform" and the Retrogression of Agriculture
Apr 25th 2007, C. P. Chandrasekhar

The consequence of recent structural shifts is that the Indian economy can record the observed creditable rates of non-inflationary growth of aggregate GDP even when its agricultural sector languishes. It appears that a feature of the growth process in a more open and liberalised environment is that the peasantry has a much smaller a role in sustaining economic growth and can thus be partially excluded from development. What is disconcerting is that the self-correcting mechanism that existed in the earlier period to restore a semblance of balance between agricultural and non-agricultural growth are no more operative.

A Model of Growth of the Contemporary Indian Economy
Apr 10th 2007, Prabhat Patnaik

This paper provides a simple model of the current pattern of India’s economic growth process, to reckon with the fact that even an accelerating growth rate may leave the unemployment problem completely unresolved, or even accentuated, as labour productivity rises at a faster rate than investment. An obvious conclusion that emerges is that the widely-held perception that higher and higher growth rates would eventually eradicate unemployment in the country, is untenable.

Recent Employment Trends in India and China: An Unfortunate Convergence?
Apr 5th 2007, C. P. Chandrasekhar & Jayati Ghosh

This paper argues that both China and India, despite the similarity of the current international hype about their future economic prospects and also despite their obvious differences, face rather similar economic problems at present with respect to the labour market. In both countries, the strategy of development is delivering relatively high growth without commensurate increases in employment, especially in the organised sector; and the bulk of new employment is in lower productivity activities under uncertain and often oppressive conditions. It is argued that this paradox may be a common result of the similar strategy of economic expansion currently being followed in both countries.

Some Aspects of the Well-Being of India's Agricultural Labour in the Context of Contemporary Agrarian Crisis
Feb 22nd 2007, Praveen Jha

The tremendous economic pressure that the Indian countryside has come under in the recent years is bound to impact the well-being of the masses in the rural economy. This paper is an attempt to examine the key elements of the contemporary agrarian crisis and its possible consequences for agricultural labourers. It appears that their economic conditions, in any case quite fragile and vulnerable even in 'better' times, have taken quite a battering in the recent years.

Poverty and Neo-liberalism in India
Jan 6th 2007, Utsa Patnaik

This paper explores why the official poverty estimates show low levels as well as decline in poverty in India over the 1990s, whereas all other economic and social indicators suggest that absolute poverty is high. The former do not capture the true picture because the official method involves the 'fallacy of equivocation'. It is also argued that when actual rural poverty is as high as nearly four-fifths of the population and poverty depth is increasing with a higher proportion of people being pushed down into lower nutritional status, there is an urgent need to revert to a demand-driven universal public distribution system.

Government Health Expenditure in India: A Benchmark Study
Oct 30th 2006, Economic Research Foundation

In spite of large positive externalities associated with health spending, in India it is until now largely privately financed. The relatively low spending by the government, a trend aggravated during the liberalisation era, implies that health infrastructure and services will be underprovided and will simultaneously deny access to the poor. This study seeks to examine the actual pattern of government spending on health and related areas (particularly, family welfare and child development) by both central and state governments.

Social Inequality, Labour Market Dynamics and the Need for Expanding Reservation - Some Issues for Consideration
Sep 5th 2006, Mritiunjoy Mohanty

This paper brings two new elements to the debate around expanding reservation in centres of excellence in higher education. First, it establishes that Upper Caste Hindus are significantly better off in education, employment and relative incomes than ST, SC or OBC populations. Second, it links this privileged positioning of Upper Castes Hindus with changing labour market dynamics in the 1990s and shows how Upper Caste Hindus dominate the best jobs in the Urban economy. Since access to high quality tertiary education then becomes key to accessing the most dynamic segment of a decelerating labour market, the paper therefore argues that expanding reservations to OBCs in public institutions of higher learning is imperative.

The Need to Protect Petty Production
Jul 17th 2006, Prabhat Patnaik

This paper argues that in a situation where unemployment is generated through the disappearance of small-scale production, the ''efficiency'' argument in favour of their closure does not stand, even if small-scale units are more inefficient at the micro-level. The destruction of petty production through exposure to liberal trade, in the name of efficiency, is therefore an undesirable course of action.

IT- Driven Offshoring: The Exaggerated "Development Opportunity"
Jan 27th 2006, C.P. Chandrasekhar & Jayati Ghosh.

This paper considers the recent boom in IT-driven offshoring in India and examines the potential for this to become a major source of economic growth in the future. It is argued that the optimism about the benefits that the new trend can bring to India and other similarly placed countries may be misplaced given the relatively small share of this sector in total output and employment, as well as the difficulties of sustaining growth in the area.

The Myth of a Global Savings Glut
Sep 30th, 2005, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh

There is substantial agreement that international imbalances in growth and balance of payments performance are a source of global fragility. But disagreements persist on the source of those imbalances. The authors discuss an effort to manufacture a global savings glut to cover up US responsibility.

Developing Countries and the Dollar
Sep 30th, 2005, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh

In this article, the authors consider the nature of developing country capital flows and analyse why investing in US dollar assets has become such a favoured use for financial resources that could be used instead to increase economic growth in the developing world.

The Economics of the New Phase of Imperialism
Aug 26th 2004, Prabhat Patnaik

This paper argues that even though "accumulation through encroachment" in the inclusive sense of the term is always an integral part of the process of capital accumulation, so that the pure reign of "accumulation through expansion" is rare and at best transitory, a crucial feature of contemporary imperialism is a vast increase in the relative importance of "accumulation through encroachment".

Statistical Briefs
NSS Employment Surveys: Problems with Comparisons over Time
Oct 6th 2004, Amit Thorat

The National Sample Survey organisation is the nation's premier data collection and distribution agency. The agency has since independence, diligently fulfilled the need for critical data for both academicians and policy makers alike. However, given the nature of evolution of the survey methodology over the years, caution needs to be exercised while conducting temporal comparisons of employment figures.

Budget 2004-05 : Farmers are the new untouchables
Jul 12th 2004, Devinder Sharma

The NDA's defeat in the recently held Lok Sabha elections owes a lot to the alliance's failing to address the problems of the agricultural sector, still a parking lot for the poor. It appears that the ruling Congress-led alliance has not learnt its lessons from the NDA's defeat as the Union Budget 2004-05 completely ignores the farming community's demands.

Food security concerns in India as Buffer Stocks Plummet
Dec 29th 2003, Sabyasachi Mitra.

Unless irrigation facilities are spread to all states in India agricultural output in the country will remain hostage to the whims of the monsoon, and food security of the country can never be ensured.

On the Economics of "Open Economy" De-Industrialization
Nov 25th 2003, Prabhat Patnaik.

This is the text of the V.V.Giri Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik at the Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics in Kolkata in December 2003. In this lecture Professor Patnaik discusses "open economy de-industrialization" which in his belief has not been fully understood.

Address at the Convocation of Kalyani University
Nov 10th 2003, Prabhat Patnaik

This lecture was delivered at the convocation of Kalyani University in the capacity of the chief guest at the ceremony.

Issues in School Education in Contemporary Kerala
Jun 7th 2003, C.P. Chandrasekhar, V. K. Ramachandran & R. Ramakumar

This paper deals with major issues in school education in Kerala in the 1990s, in particular, with issues of state investment in schooling, the retention of students in the school system, and movements to bring about change in the quality of school education in the 1990s and to the present day.

Archives >>
 
 

Site optimised for 800 x 600 and above for Internet Explorer 5 and above
© MACROSCAN 2008