Articles by Sudipto Mundle

This paper assesses the impact of the budget on the economic recovery, debt dynamics and fiscal–monetary policy interaction. It also looks at how the budget has addressed issues of lives and livelihoods. It concludes by noting that the fiscal stance of compression in the 2021–22 budget has jeopardised an already faltering economic recovery that is now jeopardised by the second wave of the pandemic.

The incidence of implicit and explicit budget subsidies provided by the central and state governments has declined from about 12.9% of the gross domestic product in 1987–88 to 10.3% at present, with the bulk of these subsidies being provided by the states and about half being spent on non-merit subsidies. This paper argues that rationalisng non-merit subsidies is one of several deep fiscal reform measures that could together free up massive fiscal space that can be used to finance an inclusive growth revival strategy.

Building on a methodology developed in an earlier paper, the results of an exercise in ranking Indian states based on five sets of criteria--infrastructure, social services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the legislature--are presented to show how states have fared relative to each other between 2001-02 and 2011-12. What emerges is that five of the six best-performing states of 2001 were also the best performers in 2011. Similarly, four of the six worst performers of 2001 were also among the worst performers of 2011. A consequence of such stickiness of rankings at the top and the bottom is growing regional disparity between the more- and less-developed states.

There are large variations among the g20 countries in their deceleration experiences, transmission mechanisms and their current macroeconomic outlook. In an integrated global economy, it is essential that the major economies coordinate their policies. But coordination does not imply simultaneous stimulus withdrawal from all g20 countries. Indeed, a phased withdrawal is probably the best guarantee against the risk of a negative global shock leading to another recession in the event of a simultaneous stimulus withdrawal from all g20 countries. Hence, this paper argues that each country needs to set the timing, scale and composition of its stimulus withdrawal keeping in mind its own macroeconomic outlook.

that has only begun to change recently following the 73rd and 74th constitutional Redefining the Discourse amendments.
on Fiscal Federalism Transfers to States Political Economy of Federalism in India by M Govinda Rao and Nirvikar Singh; Oxford University Press, India, 2005;