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Commodity Prices Distorting Real Variables
One of the things that high commodity prices has done is distort the relationship between nominal and real variables. External sector is a good example of ...
India's Fx Reserves Are Declining
FX reserves declined by a massive ~US$10bn in the week of 11th March. In the last 2 decades, on only three other occasions have FX reserves decli...
Health Insurance Expands Through The Pandemic
The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on people in the last two years – both economically and psychologically. But one of the things it has done is dri...
Pandemic, Exchange Rates And Gdp Growth
It has been just over two years since the start of the pandemic. In this short piece, we look at the impact of the pandemic on various countries through th...
Are Households Getting Pessimistic?
The findings from the latest round of the RBI’s Consumer Confidence Survey conducted in January-2022 were very interesting. It had an interesting div...
The Big Small Savings
Growing financialisation of household savings, and increased allocation to risk assets within the mix, has been a key trend in the last few years. ...
The Telecom 'Voice' Story
The telecom story in India is all about data. Since the launch of Jio and largely because of the disruption caused by Jio (and the introduction of 4G), dat...
Automobile Sales End December On A Weak Note
Automobile sales (retail) were generally disappointing in December, declining sharply on a YoY basis. On a YoY basis, sales have generally been declining i...
Liquidity: From Tailwinds To Headwinds
Since the start of the pandemic, money markets in India have been flush with liquidity. Average surplus liquidity had averaged around ₹2.8tn from mid-Febru...
Banking: The Ca Fortress Has Been Breached...
Private sector banks have gradually taken away market share from Public sector banks over the last several years. It is one of those trends that started si...
Fdi - Momentum Continues Despite The Pandemic
Despite the pandemic, last year saw a record amount of FDI into India. On a gross basis (without repatriation), India received US$82bn of FDI inflows last ...
Exports Approaching Us$400bn And 2% Share
India’s Exports have been on a tear this year. YTD (April – November), Merchandise exports have grown 50% YoY. While the decline in exports las...
Upi And The Premiumisation Of Card Payments
The rise of UPI has been the biggest disruption in the payment’s ecosystem ever. From zero five years ago, UPI now accounts for 18% of retail digital...
All-Time High Trade With China
India’s trade with China (Merchandise, Imports + Exports) reached an all-time high of almost US$10bn in September this year. This is 25% growth over ...
Money Markets - Returning To Normalcy
Going into the pandemic, monetary policy in India was already accommodative. The RBI had reduced the policy repo rate by 135bps in the calendar year 2019. ...
The Rise Of Micro Atms
India currently has an installed base of 240,000 ATMs. Most of these, are owned by Banks while a small number of them (~11%) are white label. And the numbe...
Bank Credit And The Reluctant Corporates
Bank credit growth in India has remained anaemic for the past few years. Indeed, credit growth has been slower than nominal GDP growth in five out of the p...
The Rise Of Passive Funds
The Indian Mutual Fund Industry has grown manifold in the last few years. The total assets managed by the industry has more than doubled in the last 5 year...
Towards Goldilocks Fy23?
If consensus expectation (based on RBI’s latest Professional Forecaster’s Survey, released last week) is to be believed, India is heading for G...
Railways, Pandemic And The Law Of Unintended Consequences
Transportation is amongst the sectors of the economy that has suffered the worst due to Covid, last year as well as this year due to the second wave.&nbs...
It Services: The Rise Of Captives And End(?) Of Onshoring?
IT Services is the largest component of India’s exports. As per the RBI’s latest survey, India’s IT Exports were US$130bn in FY21. And ...
Is The Manufacturing Sector At The Cusp Of A Renaissance?
The manufacturing sector has seen a sharp increase in the number of new formal firms being set up in the last few years. In the last 5 years, the number ...
Npas Are Rising And That Has Risks For Consumption
On an aggregate basis, NPAs have not risen much. In the March quarter of last year, just before the pandemic started, aggregate NPAs of Scheduled Commerc...
The Rise Of Qr Codes
UPI has been the single biggest contributor to the Payments revolution in the country. From being non-existent 5 years back, UPI now accounts for 15% of Re...
Corporate Profits And Inflation
Another interesting take away from the RBI’s Industrial Outlook (for the June-2021 quarter) survey is the broad-based expectation of pricing power. F...
Businesses And Households - The Expectations Chasm
Almost 60% of the businesses surveyed in the RBI’s quarterly Industrial Outlook Survey in June expect the business situation to improve in the next q...
Businesses And Households - The Expectations Chasm
Almost 60% of the businesses surveyed in the RBI’s quarterly Industrial Outlook Survey in June expect the business situation to improve in the next q...
Payments Tracker - July 2021
We have published our monthly Payments Tracker. This is one of the four ‘Data Reports’ we publish. The report has over 40 charts co...
India's Burgeoning Foodgrain Stocks
Foodgrain stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) reached a record high of 91 million tonnes as of 1st July. Of the 91 million tonnes of stocks, a ...
Third Covid Wave In The Uk And Vaccines
The UK is in the midst of the third wave of Covid19 pandemic. Daily new cases are at 50% of the second wave. But fatalities have not risen in s...
The Fall Of Fixed Term Plans
Once upon a time Fixed Term Plans were very popular. They combined the best of both worlds - almost guaranteed returns and tax arbitrage. But then thin...
Operational Creditors Have Been The Biggest Users Of Ibc
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was enacted to provide a structured legal framework for resolving corporate bankruptcies in the country. The cod...
House Price Growth Remains Modest In 4qfy21
House prices grew on average by just 3% YoY in the first quarter of this year in the 10 major cities of India. They declined in 4 out of the 8 ...
The Divergent Impact Of Covid On States
FY21 was a bad year for the Indian economy due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Overall GDP is estimated to have fallen by 7.3% YoY, the worst outcome, sin...
The Rise Of Fixed-Line Telecom Services
Work from Home during the pandemic & rise of streaming services has meant that after years of consistent decline, Fixed line telephone services saw n...
Credit Growth And Lazy Banking
Banks in India put more of their deposits in Investments (SLR Investments which are mostly Government securities) than they gave out in Loans in the last y...
Irrelevance Of Inflation
India’s Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) rose to a 6-month high of 6.3% in May-2021. For the first time since November-2020 inflation is above the uppe...
Overseas Remittances By Indians Declines Sharply In Fy21
Outward remittances from India had increased over 15x (yes, more than 15 times) since FY14 reaching almost US$19bn in FY20. But they dropped by a third i...
State Of The Economy - Tracking 1q Activity Data
Data for several high-frequency indicators is now available for April and May of this year. And compared to the year-ago period, most of them are suggestin...
Fdi Jumps In India In 2020 Even As Most Countries See A Sharp Decline
Most large countries saw FDI decline sharply in 2020. India and China were the key exceptions. FDI in India (excl repatriation) grew over 25%, the fastes...
Debt Monetisation And Mutual Funds
Guess who has been busy mopping up Government securities? Last year saw a big increase in the Government's deficit as the Covid pandemic depressed revenue...
The Rise In Government Borrowings
The Covid19 pandemic has had a severe impact on Govt finances. On one hand revenues have shrunk & on the other there is pressure to maintai...
Demonetisation By Stealth
The demonetisation of 2016 introduced the ₹2000 currency note. And ever since there has been talk of a second demonetisation that takes away this high deno...
Kerosene Consumption Falls 80% In The Last Decade
India's Kerosene consumption has fallen 80% in the past decade. The fall has been especially sharp in the last 5-6 years when the Government started to gra...
Whose Interest Rates Were Moved?
With the Covid19 pandemic impacting the economy, the RBI doubled down on easing monetary policy to support growth. It cut the repo rate by 115bps and the r...
Nrega Demand Spikes
The number of people demanding work under NREGA doubled YoY in April-2021, the sharpest growth since Feb-2016. However work provided under NREGA has not ke...
Are Women Getting More Credit?
Just ~20% of Personal Loans given by Banks to Individuals are to Women. But at the margin that is changing. In the last 5 years, Personal Loans to Women ha...
Highway Upgradation Grows 30% In Pandemic Hit Fy21 (Till Feb)
Economic activity has been badly impacted in FY21 due to the Covid19 Pandemic through a combination of lockdowns, issues with labour availability and budge...
Urban Consumers Are Still Struggling
Economic activity has recovered sharply from the pandemic lows - GDP growth which had fallen 25% in the June quarter grew modestly in the December quarte...
What Happens When Fewer Trains Run On The Railway Network?
Indian Railways are inefficient. But why is it inefficient - is it the lack of investment in infrastructure like wagons and locomotives OR is it the lack o...
Do Ultra-Low Interest Rates Distort Asset Prices?
It is often insinuated that abnormally low nominal interest rates distort asset prices. This inturn drives mis pricing of assets and undue risk taking. And...
Is The Economy Seeing A Sharper Than Expected Recovery?
Is the Indian economy recovering? Is the impact of Covid on the economy likely to be lower than earlier anticipated? Well, the answer to a large extent, de...
The Remarkable Transformation Of India's Ports
Once upon a time, India's ports were inefficient and had no capacity left. The last decade or so has seen a dramatic change - capacity has increased more t...