Abstract: Economic growth in India tends to be seen from ideological, and often even narrower political party, perspectives. This discourse turns a blind eye to some important trends that impact the future course of the Indian economy. One such casualty is the effect of long-term consumption and savings trends on growth. The lack of attention to these trends has resulted in policy makers and other analysts ignoring two important questions: How does India determine how much it must save for growth? And who bears the burden of this savings through constraints on their consumption? Based on a paper done by the speaker and Dr Debosree Banerjee, the talk will use long-term trends in consumption and growth to answer these two questions. It will demonstrate that inequality has played a major role in generating the savings required for India’s rapid growth since the mid-1980s, a role that it is no longer in a position to play.
About the speaker: Dr. Narendar Pani is a Professor and Dean of the School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, where he also heads the Inequality and Human Development Program. After a Ph.D. in economics, he moved into transdisciplinary research which allowed him to explore diverse, but interconnected, aspects of Indian reality. His work over the last four decades has thus ranged from agrarian reform to urban processes, confronting challenges of the method along the way. His books include Inclusive Economics: Gandhian Method and Contemporary Policy (2002) and The City as Action: Retheorizing Urban Studies (2022).