Stephanie Kelton is one of the most influential advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT. The MMT challenge to mainstream thinking on how to manage an economy has grown in popularity in recent years.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]
It especially challenges the view that government spending to support an economy is constrained by tax collections.
Kelton has written a lucid introduction to MMT, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. Much of it deals with the situation in the USA. Is MMT relevant to India?
This is worth asking for two reasons. First, the recent fiscal expansion to bolster the ongoing economic recovery will ensure that public debt as a proportion of the Indian economy is at its highest in several decades. The 15th Finance Commission, in its recent report, has estimated that public debt will be at 85.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025-26, even after the government begins to chip away at its fiscal deficit.
Second, Kelton makes an important argument in her book. The ability of a government to spend its way out of an economic downturn is contingent on its institutional details, especially the idea of monetary sovereignty. Any country that issues its own fiat current, and only borrows in that currency, is in effect released from the usual concerns about how to fund a budget deficit.
Kelton illustrates this through two extreme examples. The US prints the global reserve currency. Greece has signed away its monetary sovereignty to the European Central Bank. Interestingly, Kelton writes that even the US did not have complete monetary sovereignty under the Bretton Woods system, when its dollar was linked to gold.
Most countries are somewhere between the two extremes. Kelton rightly says that monetary sovereignty is a continuum rather than a binary classification. Countries have different levels of monetary sovereignty. Where would India fit in?
The Indian government mostly borrows in rupees. Yet, the country as a whole borrows from the rest of the world. One of the central claims of MMT is that governments do not face any financial constraints. They only face real constraints. However, countries such as India do face a financial constraint. It is called the balance of payments. India needs foreigners to buy domestic assets to get the dollars it needs to fund its current account deficit. It is a financing constraint, and one that is not unrelated to government budgetary policy.
The MMT camp is not unconcerned about inflation. It climbs when the economy runs faster than its productive capacity. Kelton also argues that inflation can take hold if people hold too much money that they may spend, thus pushing up prices, though the focus is on nominal spending rather than the printing of money by the central bank.
Some MMT arguments involve straw men. Few mainstream economists believe that the government budget faces the same constraints as a household budget. Kelton almost exclusively cites politicians rather than economists in this context. However, mainstream economists believe that budget deficits are sustainable so long as the borrowing costs of the government are lower than nominal economic growth.
Kelton does not completely dismiss this concern, but points out that a government with monetary sovereignty has total control over the domestic rate of interest. The central bank can provide the monetary support to make any level of government borrowing sustainable, at least till inflation begins to accelerate.
India does not have this freedom. It is a price taker rather than a price maker in the global financial system. Indian interest rates are influenced by global rates through flows of international capital into local financial markets.
MMT economists argue that governments create money so that citizens have the means to pay taxes. People use the currency as a medium of exchange later. This has clear roots in the early 20th century school of thought known as chartalism. Changes in tax rates are a means to either keep or take away more money from citizens, thus allowing the government to regulate economic activity. It is not clear how frequent changes in taxes to manage aggregate demand will affect long-term investment decisions of households and firms.
One final point. The MMT view is that inflation takes off only when resources are fully employed. This is also what Abba P. Lerner argued many decades ago in his articles on functional finance. The job of fiscal policy is to ensure full employment, rather than maintain “sound finances”. Most of these arguments are in the context of developed economies that face weak demand as well as excess production capacity.
The situation in India is far more complex. The labour market is informal. Employment is often seasonal. There is a persistent problem of disguised unemployment. Labour force participation is low, especially for women. The structural challenge is to create jobs outside agriculture. It is doubtful that these issues can be dealt with through the management of aggregate demand alone.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
- In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)