Month: March 2017

The Undependable GDP

On February 28, 2017, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation published the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) growth figure for the three-month period between October and December 2016.

During the period the Indian economy grew by 7 per cent. This took most economists by surprise because they were expecting demonetisation to pull down economic growth. On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that come midnight the notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination, would no longer be money. Hence, the GDP growth for the period October to December 2016 was expected to be lower.

In one go 86.4 per cent of the currency in circulation was rendered useless. As Alain de Botton writes in The News—A User’s Manual: “Like blood to a human, money is to the state the constantly circulating, life-giving medium.”

When money is taken out of an economy, it stops functioning given that economic transactions come to a standstill. In the Indian case, cash/currency is the major form of money given that a bulk of transactions happen in cash. As per a PwC report 98 per cent of consumer payments by volume happens in cash. The Economic Survey of 2016-2017 points out: “The Watal Committee has recently estimated that cash accounts for about 78 percent of all consumer payments.”

In this scenario where bulk of consumer transactions happen in cash, the Indian economy for the period October to December 2016, should have come to a standstill. But the government data suggests that it grew by 7 per cent.

This seems unbelievable. The private consumption expenditure has grown by 10.1 per cent, the second fastest since June 2011. This when the retail loan growth of banks during October to December 2016, grew by just 0.5 per cent. The manufacturing sector grew by 8.3 per cent when bank credit to industry contracted by 2.8 per cent. Hence, there is something that is clearly not right about India’s GDP data.

Some analysts and experts have suggested that data is being fudged to show the government in good light. I really don’t buy that given that there is no evidence of the same. Having said that, one reason why the impact of demonetisation hasn’t been seen in the GDP growth figure is because the GDP calculations do not capture the informal sector well enough.

This is primarily because small manufacturers and those in the retail trade do not maintain accounts. Hence, estimates of the informal sector need to be made using the formal sector indicators. As the Economic Survey points out: “It is clear that recorded GDP growth in the second half of financial year 2017 will understate the overall impact because the most affected parts of the economy—informal and cash based—are either not captured in the national income accounts or to the extent they are, their measurement is based on formal sector indicators.”

In simple English, this basically means that the size of the informal sector while calculating the GDP is assumed to be a certain size of the formal sector. The formal sector has not been affected much due demonetisation. Hence, to that extent the size of the informal sector has been overstated in the GDP. It is expected that more information coming in by next year will set this right. This basically means that the GDP growth is likely to be revised downwards as more data comes in.

But this lack of dependable GDP data and other economic data creates its own set of problems for policymakers in particular.

This is a point that former RBI governor D Subbarao makes in his book Who Moved my Interest Rate?. As he writes: “Our data on employment and wages, crucial to judging the health and dynamism of the economy, do not inspire confidence. Data on the index of industrial production(IIP) which gives an indication of the momentum of the industrial sector, are so volatile that no meaningful or reliable inference can be drawn. Data on the services sector activity, which has a share as high as 60 per cent in the GDP, are scanty.”

Further, this poor quality of data is frequently and significantly revised, making things even more difficult for policymakers. And this possibly led YV Reddy, Subbarao’s predecessor at the RBI, to quip: “Everywhere around the world, the future is uncertain; in India, even the past is uncertain.”

Long story short—sometime around this time next year, the GDP for October to December 2016, is likely to see a significant revision.

The column originally appeared in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on March 9, 2017

The Undependable GDP

On February 28, 2017, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation published the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) growth figure for the three-month period between October and December 2016.

During the period the Indian economy grew by 7 per cent. This took most economists by surprise because they were expecting demonetisation to pull down economic growth. On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that come midnight the notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination, would no longer be money. Hence, the GDP growth for the period October to December 2016 was expected to be lower.

In one go 86.4 per cent of the currency in circulation was rendered useless. As Alain de Botton writes in The News—A User’s Manual: “Like blood to a human, money is to the state the constantly circulating, life-giving medium.”

When money is taken out of an economy, it stops functioning given that economic transactions come to a standstill. In the Indian case, cash/currency is the major form of money given that a bulk of transactions happen in cash. As per a PwC report 98 per cent of consumer payments by volume happens in cash. The Economic Survey of 2016-2017 points out: “The Watal Committee has recently estimated that cash accounts for about 78 percent of all consumer payments.”

In this scenario where bulk of consumer transactions happen in cash, the Indian economy for the period October to December 2016, should have come to a standstill. But the government data suggests that it grew by 7 per cent.

This seems unbelievable. The private consumption expenditure has grown by 10.1 per cent, the second fastest since June 2011. This when the retail loan growth of banks during October to December 2016, grew by just 0.5 per cent. The manufacturing sector grew by 8.3 per cent when bank credit to industry contracted by 2.8 per cent. Hence, there is something that is clearly not right about India’s GDP data.

Some analysts and experts have suggested that data is being fudged to show the government in good light. I really don’t buy that given that there is no evidence of the same. Having said that, one reason why the impact of demonetisation hasn’t been seen in the GDP growth figure is because the GDP calculations do not capture the informal sector well enough.

This is primarily because small manufacturers and those in the retail trade do not maintain accounts. Hence, estimates of the informal sector need to be made using the formal sector indicators. As the Economic Survey points out: “It is clear that recorded GDP growth in the second half of financial year 2017 will understate the overall impact because the most affected parts of the economy—informal and cash based—are either not captured in the national income accounts or to the extent they are, their measurement is based on formal sector indicators.”

In simple English, this basically means that the size of the informal sector while calculating the GDP is assumed to be a certain size of the formal sector. The formal sector has not been affected much due demonetisation. Hence, to that extent the size of the informal sector has been overstated in the GDP. It is expected that more information coming in by next year will set this right. This basically means that the GDP growth is likely to be revised downwards as more data comes in.

But this lack of dependable GDP data and other economic data creates its own set of problems for policymakers in particular.

This is a point that former RBI governor D Subbarao makes in his book Who Moved my Interest Rate?. As he writes: “Our data on employment and wages, crucial to judging the health and dynamism of the economy, do not inspire confidence. Data on the index of industrial production(IIP) which gives an indication of the momentum of the industrial sector, are so volatile that no meaningful or reliable inference can be drawn. Data on the services sector activity, which has a share as high as 60 per cent in the GDP, are scanty.”

Further, this poor quality of data is frequently and significantly revised, making things even more difficult for policymakers. And this possibly led YV Reddy, Subbarao’s predecessor at the RBI, to quip: “Everywhere around the world, the future is uncertain; in India, even the past is uncertain.”

Long story short—sometime around this time next year, the GDP for October to December 2016, is likely to see a significant revision.

The column originally appeared in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on March 9, 2017

India’s Missing Human Capital

In his wonderful book, Wealth, Poverty and Politics, Thomas Sowell writes: “Human capital is in fact the biggest difference between ourselves and the caveman.” It is human capital that has led to the economic progress of mankind over the centuries and has put in our homes and lives so many goods and services, which make life comfortable than what it used to be.

So, what is human capital? Economist Gary Becker writes: “Economists regard expenditures on education, training, medical care, and so on as investments in human capital. They are called human capital because people cannot be separated from their knowledge, skills, health, or values in the way they can be
from their financial and physical assets.”

Hence, education is also a form of human capital. So, does this mean that more years an individual spends in a school or a college, the more human capital he develops? Only if it was as simple as that.

As Sowell writes: “While years of education are often used as a rough proxy for human capital in general, not only is much capital gained outside of educational institutions, some education develops little human capital when it produces few, if any, marketable skills… Everything depends on whether more years in schools, colleges and universities actually create meaningful skills, or whether academic credentials create a sense of entitlement beyond what the holders of those credentials actually produce.”

The point being that just because that an individual spent time going to a school or college, doesn’t necessarily make him employable. This is a problem that India is currently facing. In fact, in a speech that President Pranab Mukherjee made in December last year he said: “Our universities and colleges produce a large number of graduates every year but most of them are unemployable.”

Politicians have also made similar comments at different points of time. Ashok Choudhary, the education minister of Bihar, said in July 2016: “India is producing army of “unemployable youths” from its educational institutions and 50% graduates do not have the required skill to do any professional job.”

While, the President as well as Choudhary made a very general comment about the unemployability of India’s graduates, there are specific studies that point out towards this problem citing data. India is producing a huge number of unemployable graduates.

And this creates its own set of problems. As Sowell writes: “Depending on its content, education may sometimes create ideological aversions to working in the private sector or a refusal to do anything that does not seem to qualify as “meaningful work”… But every society has work that simply must be done despite not meeting that standard, work ranging from garbage collection to emptying bed pans in hospitals.”

Another, thing that happens is that people who get educated but don’t have any employable skills essentially feel that some kinds of work are simply beneath them. As Sowell writes: “This includes working with their hands, even as an engineer, where they “recoil from the prospect of physical contact with machines,” preferring a desk job instead.”

This phenomenon plays out in India almost regularly. Every few months there is a news item in the newspapers which says that engineers, PhDs and MBAs, have applied for jobs of peons in government departments. This clearly shows that India’s educated unemployable prefer desk jobs with the government rather than getting their hands dirtied doing any kind of physical work.

This basically means that as a country we are overeducating individuals in comparison to the kind of work we have on offer for them. It also explains why many graduates continue to be jobless and at the same time it is difficult to get hold of a half-decent plumber or an electrician for that matter, at any point of time.

Hence, it is time that vocational training become a very important part of the school and college education across the country. In a country, as poor as India is, if education is not producing any employable skills, it is practically useless.

The column was originally published in the Bangalore Mirror on March 8, 2017

Are Indians Going Back to Cash?

One of the so-called aims of demonetisation is to reduce the total amount of cash in the financial system. As of now, the financial system continues to have a lesser amount of cash than it had before demonetisation.

Take a look at Figure 1. It plots the currency with public between September 2016 and middle of February 2017. Currency with public forms a major part of the currency in circulation. The remaining being cash with banks. Before demonetisation, the cash with banks used to be around 4 per cent of the currency in circulation.

Figure 1 

Figure 1 clearly tells us that the currency with public has been going up post December 2016. Nevertheless, it is still some way away from the pre-demonetisation level. Whether that level is achieved remains to be seen. It depends on whether the government decides to replace the entire currency withdrawn through demonetisation or not.

Now take a look at Figure 2. This basically plots the rate of weekly increase in currency in circulation. I have taken currency in circulation and not currency with public because there are more data points that are available. The currency in circulation is declared by the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) every week, whereas the currency with public is declared once in two weeks. Also, I look at this data from January 13, 2017, onwards. This is because December 30, 2016, was the last date to submit the demonetised notes to banks.

Figure 2 

The rate of weekly increase in currency in circulation has had a downward trend since January. Nevertheless, we will probably need a month’s data more to say something with certainty. If the downward trend continues then the conclusion that can be drawn is that the government does not want to replace the entire currency that was demonetised. What will be the impact of that remains to be seen.

Let’s look at some more data. Figure 3 shows the number of ATM transactions using debit cards since November 2015.

Figure 3 

As far as ATM transactions using debit cards go, they have bounced back post demonetisation. In fact, the total number of transactions in January 2017 was more than that in January 2016. Having said that the total number of transactions in January 2017 was still lower than the pre-demonetisation level. If we ignore the jump in total number of transactions in October 2016 due to the festival season, the difference between the total number of transactions in January 2017 wasn’t much in comparison to September 2016.

Having said that, we also need to look at the total value of ATM transactions using debit cards, which we do in Figure 4.

Figure 4 

Figure 4 tells us that ATM withdrawals in rupee terms month on month tend to be very stable. There is some jump in October 2016, perhaps due to the festival season. After that ATM withdrawals in rupee terms crashed between November and December 2016, in the aftermath of demonetisation.

ATM withdrawals in rupee terms went up by around 79 per cent between December 2016 and January 2017. If ever there was a data point that showed that Indians preferred cash to carry out economic transcations, this is it.

Having said that, the total ATM withdrawals in rupee terms still remain below the level they were before demonetisation. This, despite the fact that the total number of ATM transactions using debit cards are more or less at the same level as they were before demonetisation (as we can see from Figure 3, ignoring the October 2016 data, which I think is a blip due to the festival season).

One explanation for this lies in the fact that the currency in circulation in January was still a long way off from the total currency in circulation before demonetisation. Hence, there was only so much currency going around which the public could withdraw. So, while the government might say that there was never a currency shortage in the aftermath of demonetisation, that is clearly not the case. Over and above this, there were withdrawal limits.

The data from the coming months will tell us if Indians continue to use cash or move towards digital transactions, as the government wants them to.

One data point that we can look at is the point of sale data using debit cards as well as credit cards. Point of sale is essentially any point where a consumer uses a credit card or a debit card to pay for goods or a service, with the card getting swiped in a point of sale machine.

Now let’s take a look at Figure 5.

Figure 5 

Figure 5 clearly tells us that the usage of credit cards and debit cards spiked up in the aftermath of demonetisation. But the value of goods bought using credit and debit cards through the point of sale route, fell by 8.4 per cent between December 2016 and January 2017, as more currency became available in the market. If we look at just debit cards, the fall is around 16 per cent. Of course, we need more data to see if this trend has continued in February as well.

To conclude, while there is not enough data to say that Indians have totally gone back to cash, but the data that is available does suggest that they are moving towards it.

(The column was orignally published on Equitymaster on March 8, 2017).

The Govt Can’t Keep Driving GDP Growth

On March 1, 2017, I wrote a piece titled, Believe in Indian GDP Growth at Your Own Peril. I got many responses to the piece. Some readers, as always, accused me of being a Congressi To them I suggest please read my writing before May 2014. Also, life is not binary at the end of the day. There is a little more to it than just that.

Some others asked if I was suggesting that the government is fudging the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) data. Not at all. I have no evidence of the same. All I was saying was that there are multiple data points which show that the Indian GDP growth just did not feel right and pass the basic smell test.

During the course of last one week, the chief statistician of India, TCA Anant, has given several interviews to explain the deficiencies in the way the Indian GDP is measured. And these deficiencies I feel have led to the GDP being overreported. (I suggest that readers looking for greater detail Google up and read Anant’s interviews).

In fact, there is another point that needs to be made here. One way of measuring the GDP is through the expenditure method. This involves the summing up of private consumption expenditure, government consumption expenditure, investments and finally net exports (i.e. imports minus exports).

Now what happens if we subtract the government expenditure from the GDP number measured through the expenditure method. How much does the remaining GDP grow by? Look at Figure 1.

Figure 1 

As per Figure 1, the GDP growth without taking the government expenditure into account during the period October to December 2016 was 5.6 per cent. This was 140 basis points lower than the overall GDP growth of 7 per cent. Why has this happened?

Take a look at Figure 2. It makes for a very interesting reading. It essentially shows what portion of the increase in GDP between years comes from an increase in government expenditure.

Figure 2 

What does Figure 2 tell us? From forming next to nothing as a part of the increase in GDP between the years, for the period October to December 2016, an increase in government expenditure made up for 26.64 per cent of the increase in GDP.

Hence, for every Rs 100 increase in GDP, increase in government expenditure made up for Rs 26.64 on an average. As we can see during the course of this financial year, an increase in government expenditure has been responsible for a greater proportion of the increase in GDP.

The government spending more to get an economy out of trouble is standard operating procedure. They need to be seen to be doing something and this all they can do.

Nevertheless, there are problems with this approach. The trouble is that this way of creating economic growth by the government spending its way out of trouble, cannot continue indefinitely. At the end of the day the government has a limited amount of money at its disposal. Further, its expenditure tends to be terribly leaky and does not reach a major portion of those it is intended for. Also, the multiplier effect of private expenditure is better.

If India has to continue growing at greater than 7 per cent, then investment needs to pick up and that doesn’t seem to be happening currently due to various reasons. Given that I keep discussing these reasons, I will give them a skip here.

Take a look at Figure 3. It shows the portion of the GDP formed by gross fixed capital formation, a measurement of investment.

Figure 3 

The gross fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP has been falling over the last few years. This figure needs to start going up, if a genuine economic recovery which creates both jobs and prosperity, needs to take place. And increased government expenditure cannot do anything about this.

The column originally appeared on Equitymaster on March 7, 2017