Call for Papers on India

Papers welcomed on all aspects of economic activity.


Papers of particular interest are on the accuracy of economic and demographic statistics, on the size and shape of the informal economy, on income and capital wealth per capita, inequality, the debt burden, and similar subjects.

Papers on all aspects of statistical methods for producing economic data, including traditional and non-traditional means of data collection are equally welcome. And papers on the practical problems of gathering data in large populous developing countries is a further area of interest.
See submission guidelines...

A paper from our sister organisation World Economics shown here illustrate areas of particular concern and interest.



Indian GDP Growth Leaves Pakistan Far Behind


Comparing the economic performance of India and Pakistan is not so easy, as neither country excels in the production of reliable GDP data. Indian GDP data is rated C grade by World Economics, which theoretically makes the numbers believable. Pakistan clearly lags with D Grade GDP data. However Indian data is classified as at the bottom of the C grated countries, and Pakistan not so far from the top of the D classification. So, in theory the difference in data utility may not be great.

Where, Pakistan lags badly is in the crucial Governance field. Poor Governance is frequently associated with Government interference with economic data (studies have shown that economic data from countries ruled by Dictators can be exaggerated by as much as 30%. Whilst not an out and out dictatorship, politics in Pakistan appear to be far from those of a tranquil democracy, and there seems no reason to suppose that data manipulation has been greater in India than in Pakistan. On balance it seems likely that Indian GDP data are more reliable than those produced in Pakistan.


World Economics GDP data (in Purchasing Power Parity terms, and adjusted for out of date GDP Base Years, and the size of the Informal economy) suggests it is likely that GDP growth in India has far outstripped that seen in Pakistan over the last quarter century.

► See data report on worldeconomics.com



October Editorial

Dangerously Misleading Debt Data

The most powerful form of lie is the omission – George Orwell


Debt poses a serious problem in most developed countries, and in many developing ones. But statistical omission and obfuscation hide the true problem. Rapidly rising numbers of old age dependants plus unfunded pay-as-you-go social security schemes are already causing unrest. More is likely to follow as state backed promises of medical and old age support become impossible to fulfil.

The problem is far greater than official debt figures suggest. Government debt data in most countries massively understates the real situation. Almost all commentary on country debt is focussed on official Government country debt as a percentage of GDP. But....

A Selection of Recent Journal Papers


The Informal Economy of the BRICS

This article evaluates the impact of trade liberalisation on the informal economy in the BRICS countries, which have significant unorganised sectors and trade policy changes. The article uses panel data from 1996 to 2015 to measure informality based on the method of Kaufmann and Kaliberda, which estimates the size of the informal sector as the difference between official GDP an...

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Growth of an Economic Giant

The economic expansion of the People's Republic of China is the most rapid continuous increase by a major economy in world history. China has become an economic giant, the world’s second-largest economy based on GDP and the largest based on purchasing power parity. This study identifies major historical events across millennia relevant to China’s continual economic development....

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The Shadow Economy and Its Determinants

The shadow economy includes economic activities that are not recognized and unregulated by public authorities. These activities cause significant challenges for policymakers by reducing tax revenue and weakening regulatory frameworks. Understanding the factors that influence the shadow economy is crucial for developing effective policies to mitigate its adverse effects. This s...

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Assessing Economic Data Quality

The paper explores a variety of data analytics methods—such as Benford’s Law for detecting manipulation, Markov Switching Models for economic cycle analysis, time-series anomaly detection for data integrity, and volatility analysis for stability—to assess the quality of economic data. It highlights the use of advanced techniques like Bayesian inference and resampling (e.g., boo...

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Smart Governance: Analysing GDP Growth and Key Economic Indicators in Pakistan

The study integrates human capital theory, Okun’s Law, and capital accumulation, using econometric tools such as the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modelling, and Error Correction Model (ECM) to analyse the unemployment-GDP growth relationship in Pakistan. GDP growth, labour force participation, and fixed capital formation are stationa...

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Evolving Power Structures in Global Governance

The international system has shifted from unipolarity to multipolarity, with emerging powers like China, India, and the European Union gaining influence, reducing the dominance of Western-led institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, as evidenced by economic data like GDP growth and FDI trends. The study analyses this transition using Offensive Realism, which highlights powe...

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Statistical Data Collection Challenges amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The importance of reliable statistical data is even more urgent in the context of the coronavirus crisis, in terms of managing the risks for public health, restarting the world economy and addressing the long-term economic and social impact of the pandemic. Government lockdowns, social distancing and work from home restrictions, imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19, pose i...

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Unveiling the Impact of the Gig Economy on Workforce Dynamics in India
Author: Sandeep Kaur

The Indian economy is witnessing a paradigm shift in workforce dynamics due to fast adoption of the internet and increasing penetration of smartphones and digital platforms. The present study seeks to understand the economic contribution of gig economy from the perspective of Indian economy. It will assess the challenges posed by the gig economy for the workforce and to compreh...

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Governments Manipulate Data
Author: Bruno S. Frey

Governments widely manipulate official economic and social data—but the public tends to disregard this fact. There is extensive empirical evidence that governments extensively manipulate official data. National statistical offices should be independent of their government to fight such manipulation, and alternative data producers should be supported. The public should be aware ...

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A Note on the Lódz Ghetto Hyperinflation

Primary data reveals one new instance of hyperinflation occurring in the Lódz Ghetto in 1944. Two instances of hyperinflation in the Lódz Ghetto occurred during World War II; in March of 1942 and February of 1944, monthly inflation in the ghetto reached 232.42% and 321.16%, respectively. The 1944 episode of hyperinflation is the 67th episode in world history and the sixth insta...

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Can the Dollar be Replaced as the Dominant Reserve Currency?
Author: Anthony Elson

Recent changes in US trade and fiscal policies represent a threat to the global trading order and the domestic financial stability of the US economy, and ultimately the dominant reserve currency status of the dollar. This paper considers two alternatives. One is the shift to a multipolar reserve currency system involving other currencies, such as the euro and renminbi. However,...

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Global vs Local Ethics of Official Statistics

The paper explores the philosophical underpinnings of the ethics of official statistics and provides a basic conceptual classification. It distinguishes between universal ethics, supranational codifications, and national/local ethics, and examines these distinctions through various philosophical perspectives. The paper emphasizes that ethics of official statistics can only be f...

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Measuring the Informal Economy in Morocco

This paper, relying on the electricity consumption method, attempts to both measure the size of the informal economy in Morocco and construct a larger time series dataset for the Moroccan informal economy. We use the Kaufmann and Kaliberda (1996) model to calculate the size of the informal economy over the period 1971 to 2014. The results show that this hidden part of the econ...

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The Effect of Listing Geography on Stock Prices

The paper examines if a stock’s exchange listing location (New York vs. Europe) affects its price, challenging the efficient-market hypothesis, amid a growing valuation gap where US equities made up 60.5% of the global market in 2024. It critiques a Financial Times article from 17 March, 2025, which studied 12 European firms adding US listings, finding methodological issues lik...

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Analysing Factors of Economic Growth in BRICS Countries

Industrial production, intra-BRICS trade, natural resource income, and foreign direct investment significantly drive GDP per capita growth in BRICS countries from 2010 to 2022. Domestic credit to the private sector may hinder economic growth, indicating a need for balanced credit allocation policies. Moderate inflation has minimal impact on economic growth, though stable inflat...

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Industrial Policy: No Longer a Dirty Word but Still Misunderstood

The paper traces industrial policy (IP) from Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 advocacy for US manufacturing to modern examples like Japan’s MITI and South Korea’s export-driven growth, highlighting China’s rise as a global manufacturing powerhouse through extensive IP use, and noting the recent resurgence of IP in the US and Europe, as seen in Biden’s and Trump’s policies and the Drag...

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The IMF at 80
Author: Graham Bird

The IMF has existed for 80 years. Over this period, the structure of the world economy has changed significantly. There has also been an evolution in economic thinking although not all economists agree with one another. The Bretton Woods system, of which the Fund was a key part, collapsed in the early 1970s. This raised the issue of whether the Fund was needed in the ‘modern er...

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Measuring the Non-observed Economy in Vietnam

This article takes advantage of new political demand at the government’s highest level to focus on measurement of the informal economy in Vietnam from a statistical perspective. The main challenges, concepts and definitions regarding the informal economy within the framework of the non-observed economy are reviewed. A discussion of alternative methodologies for measuring the ...

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Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy

The shadow or informal economy covers all economic activities which are hidden from official authorities for monetary, regulatory and institutional reasons. Although widely used, multiple indicator-multiple cause (MIMIC) models have been criticised, and we develop a modified model and database covering 157 countries over the years 1991 to 2017. We tested our model using satelli...

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Formal-Informal Dichotomy of Work in India
Author: Sazzad Parwez

This study tries to comprehend the facets of the increasing informalisation of work in India. It uses a deductive approach to analyse the secondary data and literature on the subject. Informalisation of the workforce is not a unique phenomenon restricted to India. Reforms have expedited the informalisation of work in India, which has a detrimental impact on the nature of newly ...

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