Arvind Subramanian

India's manufacturing under-performance: A new clue from 'multi-plants'

One of the most intriguing and relatively undocumented developments of the last 20 yrs has been "multi-plants," whereby a single firm operates not one but multiple production facilities within a state

Why restrictive trade responses fail to halt China's export juggernaut

US and Europe should understand the issues and discuss them with China, tailoring responses to the underlying diagnosis, rather than taking knee-jerk protectionist measures that only stoke tensions

Union Budget 2024-25: Three macro puzzles and policy implications

Why is consumption soft, employment growth weak, and core inflation low, when the economy is apparently growing strongly?

GST revenues: The fate of the compensation cess amid Centre-state row

There's no reason for the cess to be retained in its current form. That's because the cess rates themselves are monstrously complicated, varying not only in magnitude but also according to end-use

GST's revenue performance: Centre's sacrifice for cooperative federalism

Over the past few years, most commentators have rightly emphasised the tensions in Centre-state fiscal relations, pointing especially to the Centre's repeated recourse to non-sharable cesses

The Sino-American trade war benefits China's competitors

India offers a prime example. It has successfully attracted several Western firms exiting China since launching its 'China Plus One' strategy in 2014

What does the NSS data imply for GDP estimates?

What can we learn from the latest survey? Before we answer this question, we need to recognise the limitations of comparing NSS figures with the ones from the NIA

Manmohan vs Modi: False debate on both sides

The Modi government needs to thank previous governments for midwifing the GST and highlighting its value, which helped overcome Modi's own reservations about the reform

India's climate goals: Navigating a complex dilemma

Its experience underscores that unanimous advocacy for carbon taxation can be misguided, as it ignores country-specific realities

Understanding GST revenue performance

Contrary to belief, GST underperformed the old tax regime in its initial years but has now begun to exceed expectations, six years after implementation

Is the economy surging or decelerating: Understanding India's growth rate

The nominal figures track the real numbers until the first half of FY23, but then decline by a whopping 14 percentage points over the past three quarters

India should quit the Brics

Arvind Subramanian is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Josh Felman is a principal at JH Consulting

Understanding Biden's Big Bet on India

America has drawn India into a one-sided quasi-alliance: it seems to have taken one, at most one-and-a-half, to tango. The strategic rationale, of course, is the need to counter-balance China

Djokovic the Unloved Greatest

Novak Djokovic could yet win the calendar Grand Slam this year, which would be the first since Rod Laver did so more than half a century ago

Ivan Menezes (1959-2023): A personal recollection of his journey

Over-successful men tend to inflict two types of collateral damage

India's welfare balm

While many analysts have estimated India's potential annual GDP growth at 7-8 per cent, the most recent figures indicate a subdued rate of 4.4 per cent

The age of verbiage

Without a modicum of self-restraint, the constant stream of hot takes might end up undermining the informed debate that undergirds all open societies

Global cooperation is not necessary to fight climate change

Efforts to strengthen multilateral cooperation on climate change are likely to be futile. But competitive technological progress, even if promoted by protectionist policies, could save the planet

The case for structural financial deglobalisation

Attempting to minimise the costs of their Faustian bargain, emerging-economy policymakers have pinned their hopes on international coordination of monetary policy

How is the Indian economy really doing?

All the heady optimism has overlooked the vulnerable state of the macro-economy. Caution, not complacency, is the more appropriate sentiment for now