India’s Development Progress: Growth, Poverty Reduction, and the New Welfarism

There are signs that India’s growth boom has stalled, and the pace of monetary poverty reduction decelerated. The Modi government has responded with what Arvind Subramanian has called "the new welfarism," involving massive public spending on essentially private goods and services like bank accounts, sanitation, housing, cooking gas, water, and cash, while expanding the social safety net during the pandemic by providing subsidized food and fuel.

Sabina Alkire will present the latest findings for India from the 2022 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index. New results released this past week by the United Nations Development Program and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative show 415 million people exited poverty over 15 years, with the poorest states recording the fastest absolute reductions in multidimensional poverty.

Arvind Subramanian will discuss the overall state of the Indian economy, focusing on growth before and after the pandemic and the state of macroeconomic imbalances.