When countries change how they measure GDP, old numbers almost always get revised. In developing countries, as better data becomes available over time, these revisions can be large and spark debate. India is especially vulnerable to this dynamic. Its huge informal sector complicates GDP measurement. At the same time, Prime Minister Modi has made development […]

India is about to reset its economic clock; it’s overhauling how it measures GDP. By the end of next month, it will announce major changes to its GDP measurement system. To understand what’s coming, let’s see just how messy the current system is. Today, India is among the world’s fastest-growing large economies, the fourth-largest by […]

When a recent IMF report sparked debate about India’s gross domestic product (GDP), the discussion spilled into my undergraduate WhatsApp group. The group members are sharp, accomplished engineers, but many are unfamiliar with issues related to GDP; I realized I know more about the topic than some of them do. It’s all about the background; […]