Nobel Laureate On India’s Slowing Economy

Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee says Indian economy shows 'glaring signs’ of slowing down, but the government data might not show the exact picture.

Transcript

00:00So the economy is slowing very, very fast.

00:05How fast, we don't know, because there's dispute about data, but I think fast.

01:00The economy is doing very badly, in my view.

01:24One of the numbers that just came out is the National Sample Survey, which comes out every

01:30one and a half years or so, and it gives you the average consumption in urban and rural

01:37areas in India.

01:38And the fact that we see in that is that between 2014-15 and 2017-18, that number has slightly

01:46gone down.

01:47And that's the first time such a thing has happened in many, many, many, many, many years.

01:51So that's a, that's a very, so glaring warning sign.

01:56There's enormous fight going on in India about which data is right, and the government has

02:02a particular view of all data that's inconvenient to it is wrong.

02:07But nonetheless, I think that this is, this is, this is something that I think even the

02:13government is increasingly recognizing, that there is a problem.

02:18So the economy is slowing very, very fast.

02:20How fast?

02:21We don't know.

02:22There's this dispute about data, but I think fast.

02:50So there are not enough women in the economic profession at all levels.

03:18There are not enough undergraduates who choose to take economics.

03:21There are not enough graduate students who continue.

03:23There are not enough assistant professor.

03:25There are not enough, enough tenured faculty.

03:46I feel like I walked onto the set of a wrong movie.