Macroeconomic stability getting bolstered, says RBI monthly bulletin

Macroeconomic stability is getting bolstered with inflation being brought into the tolerance band and lead indicators suggesting that the current account deficit is on course to narrow through the rest of 2022 and 2023, says an article in the RBI’s January monthly bulletin. The bulletin includes three speeches and five articles. “A slowdown in growth with possibilities of recession in large swathes of the global economy has become the baseline assessment even as inflation may average well above targets,” says the article ‘State of the Economy’. It said emerging markets are appearing more resilient than in the year gone by, but their biggest risks in 2023 stem from US monetary policy and the US dollar. “In India, the softening of commodity prices and other costs amidst strong revenues appears to have boosted corporate performance. Macroeconomic stability is getting bolstered with inflation being brought into the tolerance band and lead indicators suggesting that the current account deficit is on course to narrow through the rest of 2022 and 2023.” The article ‘Productivity Growth in India: An Empirical Assessment,’ said that productivity growth can be achieved either through resource reallocation or technological progress. The article seeks to examine whether aggregate productivity growth in India is driven by resource reallocation effects or an increase in technological progress within each sector during 2001-19. The article also looks into the key sectors that contributed to aggregate productivity growth.