The Economist On India

Well, here I am, hard at it trying to write a review for this blog of the latest Economist Intelligence Unit country risk report on India (which, worry not, will follow in due course) and what I find myself doing is revving-up on all cylinders to come back and point out some of the facts of this life to all those people who spent their time during the second half of 2006 arguing that India was overheating when it was busily growing away at a mere 8%. In fact India’s growth has not only continued, it has even accelerated slightly since the debate got started, growing at an 8.9% year-on-year rate during the most recent quarter (following 9.1% and 9.3% in the first and second quarters of calendar 2007, respectively). And far from inflation shooting up and away through the roof it is currently not too far from the Reserve Bank of India’s 5% target. Perhaps it is towards China or Russia that people should be directing their attention, or towards Eastern Europe, or even - god forbid - the eurozone, but India it seems is one country where the “great overheating” argument is steadily running out of steam. Of course there is one country which everyone will readily admit is not overheating, and in comparison with the rate of negative price increases they have on their hands in Japan India’s inflation may seem serious, but I think we can safely leave that topic on one side for today.At this point I just want to repost part of a reply I gave to the Economist when they had the kindness to try to answer some points I had raised about the general quality of their economic coverage, and in particular about what I take to be their obsession with ignoring the demographic component in economic growth. For the Economist, it seems, growth and development is a single issue item, and is all about insitutions, and institutional quality. Which makes it kind of funny that Argentina, which must be among the worst of the emerging economy pack in institutional quality is still powering away, despite more or less openly manipulating their inflation data.
Obviously institutions matter, but so does demography. This is not a one horse race, or if you prefer, this particular horse doesn’t only run on one leg.
The topic in question here is India’s potential growth rate. Recent GDP performance at just under 9% must have been astounding many of India’s critics, especially given the way inflation, despite all that growth, has been kept pretty much under control.

Doesn’t look to bad at all, does it, in the light of what has been happening during the second half of this year. And remember this was written in the Autumn of 2006, not Autumn 2007 when just about everyone and their auntie is saying something like this. Of course this whole debate is ongoing.Again, I am really comfortable standing by this, and even the point about China, since the inflation problem really does seem now to be getting a grip there, in a way which it isn’t doing in India (and remember they have had nearly 30 years now of the one child per family policy, and at some point soon their labour market is going to tighten and tighten, and for a glimpse of what may well happen next in China see my recent analysis of the growing problem we now see in Russia: “Russian Inflation, Too Much Money Chasing Too Few People” (not too much danger of this getting to be a problem in India in the near future, now is there?).
Since this time of course, the whole recoupling/decoupling issue has really taken off as a live debate. My latest thoughts on this can be found here, and Claus Vistesen’s post - The Global Economy, Compass and Charts Needed - follows up on and continues the “uncharted waters” theme.

To The Economist
At the risk of having to assume some kind of modern “j’accuse” mantle (for which of course there are ample precedents in the early origins of your own magazine) I am going to put up yet another comment. Maybe this is because I would like to participate in that “severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress” which your contents page so boldly announces.
Maybe it is also because I want to pin down quite clearly for future reference just what the issues are, and just why it isn’t “absurd” to suggest that the Economist currently systematically fails to factor-in the demographic components in economic growth (or the lack of it). Well, saving the best (or should that be the worst) to the last, I would like now to come to the case of your India correspondent. This gentleman (and I sincerely hope that despite his evident predilection for strong Vindaloo curry he is one of these) has been systematically re-adjusting upwards India’s potential trend growth rate in recent months. In fact his estimate seems to have shot up from 6.5% in November 2006 to 7% in February 2007, to 8% in June 2007. Now that’s an upward adjustment of around 25% in trend growth in roughly 8 months. Quite an achievement, especially since he offers absolutely no explanation whatever for these adjustments, but what he does not fail to tell us - oh, he never lets a moment rest without beating this drum - is that: “India’s economy, like Delhi this week (or Vindaloo curry perhaps, EH), remains far too hot.”
Now just in case what I am suggesting here is questioned I would like to quote chapter and verse, since the issue is an important one.
In November 2006 the Economist’s India correspondent estimated capacited growth for India at around 6.5%.

Basically I find myself in agreement with the Indian economists he doesn’t like. It isn’t that these reforms aren’t desireable, as he admits, we all agree on this. But the point is, even ex-reforms (and of course there have been reforms and global opening) demographic momentum would indicate that substantial growth is now going to occur. How substantial? Hard to say, but I think it is quite probable that 5 years from now India will be growing faster than China, and may even peak out at the highest annual growth rates yet seen for a significant economy over the 5 to 10 year window. I can justify why I think this with some sort of coherent argument, but I think the big danger for the sort of view they are advancing at the Economist is that they imagine virtually nothing is possible without institutional reform, and this is just as big a mistake as saying demography is everything. You need to systematically take the two components into account. If you don’t do this you risk getting into the ridiculous position the World Bank found itself in earlier in the year, when countries like Argentina and Thailand complained that since their countries were registered as going backwards on the global governance index, while both countries were growing quite nicely, then logically the methodology used to construct the index must be wrong. IMHO the World Bank has been totally mechanistic about institutions and thoroughly deserves all the problems it creates for itself on this count. OK, so that’s it. I finally rest my case. The dialogue will continue.

Source:The Indian Economy Blog