Jayati Ghosh’s Blog

The “demographic dividend” that was so eagerly anticipated in India more than a decade ago has already become a demographic disaster. India’s burgeoning youth population is achieving higher levels of education, and then entering a labour market that simply does not offer productive employment opportunities. So extreme is the employment crisis that the problem goes well beyond that of finding a “good job”—one that is regular, formal and with decent wages and working conditions. It extends to the growing inability to find any source of gainful employment at all, however low-paid and tenuous. This is clearly evident in the desperation…

The popular insurrection that ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government offers important lessons for the international community and neighboring India. While the unrest was undoubtedly fueled by the regime’s repressive and increasingly anti-democratic tactics, exemplified by its brutal crackdown on largely peaceful student protesters, the underlying causes of public discontent are often overlooked. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on August 13, 2024)

In the past three years, global food prices have been on a roller coaster, rising rapidly especially in the first half of 2022 due to a speculative bubble and then falling from July 2022 onwards (Figure 1). The phase of rising food prices led to increasing food prices around the world, especially in lower income countries—and this was obviously associated with growing hunger. According to the FAO, 122 million more people faced hunger in 2022 than in 2019, before the global pandemic. Around 42 per cent of the world’s population—more than 3.1 billion people—were unable to afford a healthy diet…

The recently released report from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Evaluation, the ‘Statistical report on value of output from agriculture and allied sectors (2011-12 to 2022-23)’ provides some estimates of how the value of agricultural output has changed since 2011-12. This is important information (even though the methodology involves several assumptions that could be called into question) since the 11-year period that is covered includes 9 years in which the country has been ruled by the Modi government, and therefore is a useful indicator of how agriculture has fared under that regime. This is especially relevant in the context…

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s inability to secure a parliamentary majority in India’s general election has shattered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aura of invincibility. Modi will now have to rely on coalition partners to pass legislation, potentially curbing his efforts to consolidate power. Click here for full article. (This article was originally published in the Project Syndicate on June 10, 2024)

Against all odds, in the elections to India’s parliament, whose results were announced last week, the opposition I.N.D.I.A. alliance managed to prevent the rampaging ruling party, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), from securing a majority on its own. In his own constituency, Modi’s lead over his nearest rival fell by around two-thirds, to significantly less than that secured by Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party in the two constituencies he contested. And in the Hindi-speaking heartland, where Modi and the BJP sought to polarise along religious lines, spewing the most vitriolic hatred against Muslims, the party did particularly badly.…

The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections have come as a shock to those who had mistakenly believed in the problematic exit polls, which continued the narrative so assiduously cultivated by the previous Modi government. Many pundits who had confidently justified those false predictions have already jumped to explain the actual results. One main explanation is that the INDIA alliance emphasised social justice and the caste census, stitched up more astute coalitions, and made sharper candidate choices in terms of caste. A Clear Message There is no doubt that the recognition of the need for social justice as well…

It is generally perceived that India’s growth trajectory has been consumption-led. Many of the enthusiastic international assessments of future economic growth prospects in India are based on the anticipation of the massive domestic market likely to be created by India’s large and dominantly young population. This perception has been enhanced by the fact that consumption has been a significantly high share of GDP (at 55-58 for several decades), while net exports have not really emerged as a major growth impetus other than for some services. Meanwhile, investment rates, which increased in the decade of the 2000s, have declined and stagnated…

The international-development sector has become fixated on calculating financing gaps. Hardly a day goes by without new estimates of the funds low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) need to meet their climate targets and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, for example, estimates that developing and emerging economies (excluding China) need $2.4 trillion annually by 2030 to close the financing gap for investments in mitigation and adaptation. Achieving the SDGs would require an extra $3.5 trillion per year. Similarly, the UN’s 2023 Trade and Development Report suggests that LMICs need roughly $4 trillion per year to meet…

Once again, low and middle income countries (LMICs) are at the brutal receiving end of the fickle trajectory of international capital flows. As Figure 1 indicates, net financial flows to such countries, which increased rapidly after the Global Financial Crisis that began and was created by advanced economies, peaked in 2014. Thereafter, they have been on a downward trend, which has accelerated dramatically from 2021, to the point that they turned negative in 2023, and are expected to fall further in 2024. In 2023, LMICs as a group (excluding China) sent an estimated $21.4 billion (which they could ill afford…