Gujrat and Bihar
INSIGHT
Have Gujarat and Bihar
Outperformed the Rest of India?
A Statistical Note
R Nagaraj, Shruti Pandey
In the popular and media imagination, fed by economists and columnists, Gujarat and Bihar have both recorded an extraordinary economic performance in the past decade.
But a careful analysis shows that
Gujarat, always one of the richest states, has done no better than before. In neither industry nor agriculture has its position radically changed. The only dramatic difference has been the emergence of import-dependent and export-oriented petroleum refining, which has few linkages with the state economy. As in the past decades, Gujarat’s social development continues to lag behind its economic development.
Likewise, Bihar’s position at the bottom of the league has not changed dramatically. Change seems to take place very slowly at the regional level.
R Nagaraj (nag@igidr.ac.in) is at the Indira
Gandhi Institute of Development Research,
Mumbai, and Shruti Pandey (shrutipandey2401@ gmail.com) is with the EPW Research
Foundation, Mumbai.
Economic & Political Weekly
EPW
september 28, 2013
G
Yet, in all the discussion the underlying empirical basis is surprisingly weak.
Often trend growth rates are computed for the gross state domestic product (GSDP) series for short time periods, ignoring the wild fluctuations in the official data, yielding large standard errors for the estimated parameters (Figure 1). To overcome such problems, this note has avoided computing growth rates but examines the ranks of Gujarat and Bihar relative to the national average to shed light on their performance over the last two decades. However, Gujarat’s performance gets scrutinised in more detail as it has attracted far greater public attention.
ujarat is among the richest states in the country. It contains only
4.9% of the population (2011) but contributes to 7.9% of the total domestic output of all states. Bihar is one of
Have Gujarat and Bihar
Outperformed the Rest of India?
A Statistical Note
R Nagaraj, Shruti Pandey
In the popular and media imagination, fed by economists and columnists, Gujarat and Bihar have both recorded an extraordinary economic performance in the past decade.
But a careful analysis shows that
Gujarat, always one of the richest states, has done no better than before. In neither industry nor agriculture has its position radically changed. The only dramatic difference has been the emergence of import-dependent and export-oriented petroleum refining, which has few linkages with the state economy. As in the past decades, Gujarat’s social development continues to lag behind its economic development.
Likewise, Bihar’s position at the bottom of the league has not changed dramatically. Change seems to take place very slowly at the regional level.
R Nagaraj (nag@igidr.ac.in) is at the Indira
Gandhi Institute of Development Research,
Mumbai, and Shruti Pandey (shrutipandey2401@ gmail.com) is with the EPW Research
Foundation, Mumbai.
Economic & Political Weekly
EPW
september 28, 2013
G
Yet, in all the discussion the underlying empirical basis is surprisingly weak.
Often trend growth rates are computed for the gross state domestic product (GSDP) series for short time periods, ignoring the wild fluctuations in the official data, yielding large standard errors for the estimated parameters (Figure 1). To overcome such problems, this note has avoided computing growth rates but examines the ranks of Gujarat and Bihar relative to the national average to shed light on their performance over the last two decades. However, Gujarat’s performance gets scrutinised in more detail as it has attracted far greater public attention.
ujarat is among the richest states in the country. It contains only
4.9% of the population (2011) but contributes to 7.9% of the total domestic output of all states. Bihar is one of
References: Krishna, Raj (1980): “The Centre and Periphery – Inter-state Disparity in Economic Development”, in Facets of India’s Development, G L Mehta Memorial Lectures, published by ICICI, Bombay, 1986. Shah, Tushaar, Ashok Gulati, Hemant P, Ganga Shreedhar and R C Jai (2009): “Secret of