Category Public Finances and Macroeconomics

Budget 2023-24: Impact on Urban India & Local Governance

Insights, Center for Habitat, Urban and Regional Studies, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Center for Work and Welfare, Economy and Infrastructure, Public Finances and Macroeconomics, Urbanization, Habitat, Transportation and Regional Development

This year’s budget is a bag of misplaced government spending priorities and misses some crucial challenges facing urban development.

The last full Union budget of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government continues to be plagued with the idea that “the private capital will ameliorate some of the basic problems of India and that large capital-intensive technologies will usher in development, including inclusive development.”

How fallacious is this argument? We have seen this in the past three decades. The structural difference brought in by Manmohan Singh’s budget in 1991 was to “shift India’s economy away from the hands of the government to the hands of private enterprise, and embraced free trade.

IMPRI, IMPRI and IMPRI
February 8, 2023

Economic Survey, Union Budget, Labour Law Reforms and Unorganised Sector

Insights, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Center for Work and Welfare, Economy and Infrastructure, Governance and Law, Livelihoods, Employment and Well-being, Public Finances and Macroeconomics

The Economic Survey 2022-23 is an information provider with little analytical thrust, at least on labour-related matters.

The Economic Survey (ES) 2022-23 prepared the ground for the focus points in the Union Budget 2023. The story on the labour front is as follows.

IMPRI, IMPRI and IMPRI
February 7, 2023

Electoral Bonds No Solution

Insights, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Economy and Infrastructure, Governance and Law, Public Finances and Macroeconomics, Public Policies, Programs and Schemes

How do donations via electoral bonds funded by legal or illegal money help curb undue influence on policymakers? Electoral bonds provide an additional of such funds.

The Union Government initiated the Electoral Bonds scheme, announced in the Union Budget 2017–18, on January 2, 2018. The aim was “to cleanse the system of political funding in the country”. While many other issues are also germane, the moot question is will this goal be achieved.

IMPRI, IMPRI and IMPRI
February 4, 2023

Hindenburg’s bet against Adani

Insights, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Economy and Infrastructure, Public Finances and Macroeconomics

Few can vouch for the veracity or otherwise of Hindenburg’s research that raises serious allegations of wrongdoing against the Adani group. The present author certainly cannot. These charges could be accurate to varying degrees but that does not put Gautam Adani in the company of fly-by-night operators or the likes of arms brokers and others who profit purely from government patronage. Adani is a first-generation entrepreneur who has dreamed big, executed with excellence and has built chunks of the Indian economy’s essential infrastructure, whether ports, power plants, grain storage or renewable energy.

IMPRI, IMPRI and IMPRI
February 4, 2023

Budget 2023- 24: Pro-Growth and CAPEX Conundrum

Insights, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Center for Work and Welfare, Economy and Infrastructure, Livelihoods, Employment and Well-being, Public Finances and Macroeconomics

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has come up with a Budget that did not deserve a thumbs down from the Nifty, which ended the day’s trading 0.26% lower. This was more on account of the troubles of the Adani Group and, by association, of public sector banks with exposure to the group.

The big boost to capital expenditure — including grants in aid of capex; the increase in capex is Rs 3.2 lakh crore, to Rs 13.7 lakh crore — is welcome and suggests that the Budget is pro-growth. That pro-growth glow loses some sheen when we take into account the total size of the Budget. It has come down from 16% of GDP in 2021-22 to 15.3% in 2022-23 and is slated to fall further to 14.9% next fiscal year. This reflects the longstanding inability of the system to significantly increase the share of taxes in GDP — the only way to raise total expenditure is to borrow, which means that fiscal correction also brings down the size of total spending.

IMPRI, IMPRI and IMPRI
February 4, 2023

Union Budget 2023- 24: Boosting the Demand in Amrit Kaal

Insights, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Center for Work and Welfare, Economy and Infrastructure, Entrepreneurship, ICT and Innovation, Generation Alpha Data Centre, Livelihoods, Employment and Well-being, Panel Discussion, Public Finances and Macroeconomics, Public Policies, Programs and Schemes, Urbanization, Habitat, Transportation and Regional Development

The IMPRI Center for the Study of Finance and Economics (CSFE), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, hosted an interactive panel discussion on the topic “The Amrit Kaal and Union Budget 2023-24” on 2 February 2023, under the IMPRI 3rd Annual Series of Thematic Deliberations and Analysis of Union Budget 2023-24, as part of IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk.

IMPRI
February 3, 2023

Amrit Kaal and Union Budget 2023-24 #TowardsAccountability

Video: The Amrit Kaal and Union Budget 2023-24

Videos, Center for the Study for Finance and Economics, Center for Work and Welfare, Economy and Infrastructure, Entrepreneurship, ICT and Innovation, Generation Alpha Data Centre, Livelihoods, Employment and Well-being, Panel Discussion, Public Finances and Macroeconomics, Public Policies, Programs and Schemes, Urbanization, Habitat, Transportation and Regional Development

The Amrit Kaal and Union Budget 2023-24 | Panel Discussion | #TowardsAccountability #IMPRI Center for the Study of Finance and Economics (CSFE), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi invites you to an IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk series: The State of Public Finance…

IMPRI
February 2, 2023