non oil non gold non silver imports

Demonetisation’s negative impact on economy is not done yet, it will continue; be warned

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In a few days, the first anniversary of demonetisation will be here. The Narendra Modi government will continue doing what it has done in the last one year—give demonetisation a positive spin.

But how can a decision which made 86.4 per cent of the currency in circulation, useless overnight, in a country where 80-98 per cent of the transactions were carried out in cash (depending on which estimate you would like to believe), be a positive one?

Let’s take a look at Figure 1. It basically plots the annual growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports.

Figure 1:
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What does Figure 1 tell us? First, it tells us that the annual growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports had been rather subdued since January 2015. In fact, it has been in the negative territory several times, especially in a few months before November 2016, when demonetisation was announced.

But after November 2016, the growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports simply took off and reached a peak of 42.5 per cent in April 2017. This basically means that these imports where 42.5 per cent higher in April 2017 in comparison to April 2016.

What does this tell us? It tells us that a significant portion of the consumer demand post demonetisation has been fulfilled through higher imports. So far so good.

Demonetisation basically disrupted and destroyed supply chains, both in the formal as well as the informal economy. With supply chains being destroyed, the supply of domestic goods has been replaced by imports and has not been fulfilled through the production of domestic firms.

It is worth remembering here that imports are a negative entry into the gross domestic product (GDP) formula.
Y = GDP
C = Private Consumption Expenditure
I = Investment
G = Government Expenditure
NX = Exports minus imports

Hence, if imports grow at a faster pace than exports, they pull down the GDP to that extent. Exports during this year (between April to September) have gone up by around 10.9 per cent in comparison to last year. Imports are up by 22.3 per cent. Given this, it is not surprising that the economy has slowed down. The economic growth for the non-government part of the economy, which forms around 90 per cent of the economy, was around 4.3 per cent, for the period between April to June 2017. This was more than 9 per cent in early 2016.

Hence, demonetisation has played a huge role in slowing down economic growth. And this is tragic given that one million Indians are entering the workforce every month. In fact, it has also rendered a standard tactic in reviving economic growth, pretty much useless.

Allow me to explain. When countries are not doing well on the economic front, the standard prescription offered by economists is for the government to spend more. When the government spends more, the extra spending becomes somebody’s income. When that income is spent, businesses benefit, and the economy revives.

The trouble is that in the current situation if such a prescription is applied on India (actually to some extent it already has been), the government spending will eventually create consumer demand, a substantial portion of which will be fulfilled through imports. Imports, as we have already seen, are a negative entry into the GDP formula. Given this, a fiscal expansion instead (the act of government spending more) of creating faster economic growth might just slow it down.

The point being that we aren’t done yet with the negative effects of demonetisation. There’s more to come.

The column originally appeared on Firstpost on November 3, 2017.

How Demonetisation Destroyed Indian Jobs and ‘Possibly’ Helped Create Jobs Abroad

The ill-effects of demonetisation are still coming to the fore. In this issue of the Diary, I will talk about how demonetisation destroyed Indian jobs and “possibly” helped create jobs abroad.

Before I get into explaining why I am saying what I am saying, a recap of some basic economics is necessary here.

At its most basic level, the gross domestic product(GDP), a measure of the economic size of a country, is expressed as Y = C + I + G + NX, where:

Y = GDP

C = Private Consumption Expenditure

I = Investment

G = Government Expenditure

NX = Exports minus imports

The point to remember here is that imports are a negative entry in the GDP formula. The more a country imports, its GDP falls to that extent. Having said that imports also represent consumer demand at the end of the day, even though that demand does not add to the country’s GDP. For example, every time an Indian buys an electronic good manufactured in China, he is adding to the consumer demand but not to the GDP. Of course, he is adding to the Chinese GDP because exports are a positive entry into the GDP formula.

Hence, if we remove the imports of oil, gold and silver, from the total imports number (in dollars), what remains (i.e. non-oil non-gold non-silver imports) is a good indicator of consumer demand.

Now let’s take a look at Figure 1, which basically plots the year on year growth in the monthly non-oil non-gold non-silver imports. Hence, the non-oil non-gold non-silver imports in April 2017 went up by 42.5 per cent in comparison to the imports in April 2016. And that’s how it is for all other data points in Figure 1.

Figure 1: 

What does Figure 1 tell us? It tells that non-oil non-gold non-silver imports have grown at an extremely fast rate after October 2016. They are growing at rates at which they haven’t grown for a couple of years. What is happening here?

As Jahangir Aziz, head of emerging market economic research, told Bloomberg Quint recently: “What we had also feared was the demonetisation would disrupt the supply chains that run through both the formal and the informal economies. And if those supply chains get disrupted, then the revival in demand would not get fulfilled by domestic production.”

This basically means that demonetisation destroyed domestic supply chains. Without supply chains products can’t move. This has resulted in consumer demand being fulfilled through imports.

This is clearly visible in the huge growth of non-oil non-gold non-silver imports. What this also means is that as demonetisation destroyed supply chains in India, it also led to a huge job destruction. If goods weren’t moving, there was no point in producing them either. This meant shutdown of firms and massive job losses.

Further, by importing stuff that we used to produce in India earlier, we have helped the manufacturing business in foreign countries and in the process “possibly” helped create jobs there.

The irony is that one million youth are entering the workforce in India, every month. The economist Kaushik Basu had said in November 2016 that “[The] economics [of demonetisation] is complex & the collateral damage is likely to far outstrip the benefits.”The impact of this complex economics is still playing out and along with the botched up implementation of GST, has pulled down non-government GDP growth to around 4.3 per cent.

The column was originally published on Equitymaster on September 26, 2017.