The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted the Flagship Seminar on the topic “Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India” on May 9th, 6:00–7:30 PM (IST).

The discussion was based on a recent study, issued as an IMF Working Paper, by ​Surjit S. Bhalla, Karan Bhasin, and Arvind Virmani. Surjit Bhalla presented the study and Arvind Virmani responded to the discussants.  Santosh Mehrotra, and Pronab Sen were the discussants. The session was moderated by Rakesh Mohan.

About the event:

The COVID – 19 pandemic has led to renewed interest in the estimation of poverty, and in measuring the impact of policy interventions on poverty alleviation. For India, such an exercise is challenging given the 2017-18 “ill-fated” survey. The last available consumption distribution from the NSSO is the 2011-12 Consumption Expenditure Survey. Based on the 2011 distribution, the paper arrives at poverty estimates for every year (2004-05 to 2020-21) using the World Bank’s 1.9$ PPP and 3.2$ PPP poverty line. The paper uses growth factors derived from national Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE)  and State Gross Domestic Product for 33 states, and several other instruments to validate these growth factors. In addition, the paper argues the need for the inclusion of in-kind food transfers while making poverty estimates whose importance has increased since the introduction of the National Food Security Act in 2013. There has been a substantial expansion in the extent of support to the poor in the form of subsidized food transfers and these transfers made up for 10-20 % of the poverty line in 2020 for the bottom 10-20 % of the population. Post incorporation of in-kind transfers, poverty (1.9$ PPP) in India was less than 1 per cent in 2019-20 and it remained at that level in the pandemic year 2019. The doubling of entitlements under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) played a major role in absorbing the impact of the pandemic on the poor.

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7116517290229/WN_Xs_QSsH6Sp2i9ARHiO4h8A

Presenters:

• Surjit S. Bhalla is Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan at the IMF.. He has served as part-time member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council in 2017-18, Chairperson for the Ministry of Commerce High Level Advisory Group on Trade, and Economic Adviser to the Fifteenth Finance Commission, Government of India. In addition, he is a regular invitee to the Aspen Institute Program on World Economy, USA, 2002-present. He has also been a contributing editor for Indian Express (2010-2019). He was founder-chairman of Oxus Research & Investments 1997-2016; and was Senior India Analyst for the Observatory Group, NY, April 2015-Sept. 2018.  Dr Bhalla has taught at the Delhi School of Economics and served as executive director of the Policy Group in New Delhi, the country’s first non-government funded think tank. Since 1999, he has been on the governing board of India’s largest think tank, NCAER. He has worked as a research economist at the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and at both the research and treasury departments of the World Bank, and as a consultant to Warburg Pincus. He has also worked on Wall Street in Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University, a Master in Public and International Affairs from Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and a BSEE degree from Purdue University.
• Karan Bhasin is presently pursuing a PhD in Econometrics & Quantitative Economics at the State University of New York at Albany. Prior to this, he has worked with multiple think tanks, government agencies and multilateral institutions in the past. A regular columnist, he writes for major digital publishing platforms, leading Indian magazines and newspapers.
• Arvind Virmani is Chairman of the Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare (EGROW) and President of the Forum For Strategic Initiatives (FSI, Delhi). He was earlier Executive Director (IMF), Chief Economic Advisor (Ministry of Finance) and Principal Advisor (Planning Commission). He was closely associated with the tax, tariff, foreign exchange, financial sector & expenditure policy reforms carried out by India from 1991 to 2009. He was Director & Chief executive of ICRIER (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) and has published 35 journal articles, 20 book chapters and over 50 other working papers, in Macroeconomics, Growth, Tax & Tariff Reform, Foreign Exchange, International Relations, and National Security Strategy.

Discussants:

• Santosh Mehrotra is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development, Bath University, UK. He was Professor of Economics, Centre for Labour, JNU and Research Fellow, at the IZA Institute of Labour Economics, Bonn. He is also a Professorial Senior Fellow at the  Nehru Memorial Museum & Library. He was head of UNICEF’s global research programme at Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, and chief economist, Global Human Development Report New York (1991-2006). He was the head of Development Policy Division of India’s Planning Commission and thereafter, the Director General of National Institute of Labour Economics Research (2006-14). He has published 13 books (including 3 with Cambridge University Press, 4 with Oxford University Press, other by Sage, Routledge, Zed Press, Penguin). His work has been translated into Hindi, Spanish, French, Russian, German and Portuguese.

• Pronab Sen is Country Director, International Growth Centre’s India Programme, and is Editor, Indian Journal of National Income & Wealth. He is also a member of the High-level Expert Group on Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (OECD) and the Technical Advisory Group of the International Comparison Project (World Bank). Previously he was Chairman of the National Statistical Commission, the first Principal Economic Adviser at India’s Planning Commission, the first Chief Statistician of India, and Secretary, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. He was the principal author and coordinator of three Five Year Plans and Mid-term Appraisals. He has chaired a number of government Committees, most notably on Economic Statistics, Ecological Fragility, Control of Prices of Essential Drugs, and Slums. Dr. Sen received his B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi (1972); M.B.A. (1974) and M.A. in Economics (1975) from the George Washington University; and Ph.D. in Economics (1982) from the Johns Hopkins University.

Moderator:

• Rakesh Mohan: Rakesh Mohan is President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, Professor at Yale’s School of Management, and Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process since the late 1980s, he has served in senior roles including as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary, Economic Affairs and Chief Economic Adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance, and Economic Adviser in the Indian Ministry of Industry. He has authored books on urban economics, urban development, monetary policy, and economic reform. He is also member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM).

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.