Now Reading: India poorer and less free under Modi than without him: Study
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India poorer and less free under Modi than without him: Study
India's per capita GDP is roughly 25% lower and its democratic freedoms significantly worse under Prime Minister Narendra Modi than they would have been had he not been in power, a new…
India's per capita GDP is roughly 25% lower and its democratic freedoms significantly worse under Prime Minister Narendra Modi than they would have been had he not been in power, a new study by economists David R. K. and Kenneth L. has claimed. The study, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, uses a statistical method to compare India's actual performance since 2014 against a modelled 'counterfactual' India without Modi.
The authors estimate that under an alternative political trajectory, India's per capita GDP would have been about $2,500 higher in 2020. They also cite declines in measures of press freedom, civil liberties, and democratic accountability, attributing these to the Modi government's centralisation of power and weakening of institutions.
The study is based on a methodology that constructs a synthetic 'control' India from a weighted average of other countries. It has not yet been peer-reviewed in an academic journal.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The study employs a synthetic control method that compares India against a weighted combination of countries similar to its pre-2014 trajectory, a technique widely used in econometrics to estimate counterfactual outcomes. Its core claim, that per capita GDP is roughly 25% lower than it would have been under a non-Modi government, rests heavily on this constructed baseline. Critics of such studies often challenge the choice of comparison countries and the assumption that no external economic shocks, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, affected the counterfactual. The study's release follows a series of domestic and international indices that have flagged a decline in India's ranking on press freedom, civil liberties, and ease of doing business since 2014. What remains to be tested is whether the authors' methodology withstands peer review and whether the data they rely on, particularly the democracy and freedom scores, comes from standardised, cross-nationally comparable sources like the V-Dem Institute or Freedom House, which regularly publish such indices.
Source: thewire.in
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
