Arjun wrote:Key takeaway re external handling of economy, remains the following: NDA stress on fiscal prudence combined with growth-oriented Investments vs UPA lack of prudence on fiscal deficit; Growth secondary in importance to redistribution in UPA regime
This is the "I have a view dont bother me with data" style of economic hypothesizing.
Lets see the data (1998 to 2013):
GDP Growth
NDA years: 5.9%
UPA years: 7.6%
Fiscal Deficit
NDA years: 5.5%
UPA years: 4.6%
Investments (Gross Fixed Capital Formation as % of GDP)
NDA years: ~25%
UPA years: ~36%
Public Debt (as % of GDP)
NDA years: grew from 50% to 61%
UPa years: declined from 61% to 48%
One can add the numbers of 2014 and 2015 - I havent because of the new GDP series data. We can add in, 2014 numbers to UPA and 2015 to NDA - the averages wont change a whole lot (for illustration, GDP in 2014 is estimated to be 6.9%, 2015 is 7.5%. Fiscal deficit: 4.4%(2014), 4.1% (2015). Investment numbers are not available for 2015 yet).
So a govt with a "stress on fiscal prudence" incurred fiscal deficits @ 90 bps more as % of GDP, and
grew public debt. A govt with focus on "growth" lagged one that put "growth as secondary" by 170 bps p.a! And a govt focussed on investments lagged one thats focussed on "redistribution" by 10% of GDP.
Guess what? Most of these data points can be critiqued and analysed. Conclusions are not black and white - there would be issues around both NDA and UPA periods. But for that, people need to get out of what Kaushik Basu recently described as "wholesale politics" of India.