India's GDP growth overestimated by 2.5 pc, says Modi govt's former chief economic adviser

Arvind Subramanian, Narendra Modi government's former chief economic adviser, has deduced that India's economic growth rate has been overestimated by around 2.5 percentage points between 2011-12 and 2016-17 due to a change in methodology for calculating GDP.

India's gross domestic product product (GDP) growth rate between this period should be about 4.5 per cent instead of the official estimate of close to 7 per cent, he said in a research paper published at Harvard University.

"India changed its data sources and methodology for estimating real gross domestic product (GDP) for the period since 2011-12. This paper shows that this change has led to a significant overestimation of growth," he said in the paper.

The paper comes amidst controversy over the country's economic growth under the new GDP series. The revision in the methodology happened during the first term of the Modi government.

"Official estimates place annual average GDP growth between 2011-12 and 2016-17 at about 7 per cent. We estimate that actual growth may have been about 4.5 per cent with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 3.5 - 5.5 per cent," he said.

Manufacturing is one such sector where the calculations have been largely mismeasured, wrote Subramanian, who quit as the chief economic adviser in August last year before his extended tenure was to end in May 2019.

He said the implication of this is: "Macro-economic policy too tight. Impetus for reform possibly dented. Going forward, restoring growth must be highest priority, including to finance government's laudable inclusion agenda. GDP estimation must be revisited."
"So, post-global financial crisis, growth in India, solid not stellar," he tweeted with a link to his research paper. "My paper focuses on original, technical methodological changes which are distinct from more recent GDP controversies such as "back-casting" and puzzling upward revisions for latest years."
According to Subramanian, two important policy implications follow: "the entire national income accounts estimation should be revisited, harnessing new opportunities created by the goods and services tax to significantly improve it; and restoring growth should be the urgent priority for the new government."