The Art Of Policymaking And The Pricing Of Pulses

It all started with my stumbling upon Seetha’s critique of the Arvind Subramanian (AS) committee report on the pricing of pulses in India. Subramanian is Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the Government of India.

Seetha did not appear particularly thrilled either with the report or the press conference in which the report was released. She thought that recommendations to increase either the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for pulses or raise the procurement quantity were standard solutions. Further, she was disappointed that the CEA was not forceful enough on market solutions – on abolishing export quotas, restrictions, banning forward and futures trading on commodities, etc. She had a point.

Sunil Jain had written a slightly more positive comment on the AS Committee Report (ht: Aashish Chandorkar). However, he was wrong in one respect. Contrary to what he wrote, the report did not officially recommend a reduction in Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy. It discusses it and mentions it as a desirable recommendation, but stops short of putting it in its list of recommendations. Pages 5-6 and 36-37 summarise the recommendations (yes, twice). But, the recommendation to cut the MSP for paddy is not there.

I went through the report. First, the CEA had consulted widely. Second, the report does a good balancing act, in my view, between the politically possible and economically sensible and tried to find the middle ground by opting for incremental improvement while retaining some recommendations that politicians are familiar and comfortable with.

Third, the report was understated on export bans, stock limits and raids. Yet, there is a full page on the need to rethink the Essential Commodities Act 1955 (appendix 3, page 40). But, I think that is the politically correct thing to do. To beat up the politicians for what they have done, from an economist’s perspective, might be intellectually satisfying but politically unlikely to get the recommendations accepted.

Some of the highlights of the report

Yields in India are relatively low compared with those abroad. For example, tur yields average close to 725 kg/ha whereas in Myanmar it is nearly double that amount.

Pulses, in contrast, are grown by small and marginal farmers in dry-land areas. They are not as wealthy as cereal farmers and are less able to mobilise.

The debate over feasible vs. ideal policy proposals does not have a conclusion. Perhaps, pushing the boundaries of what is possible may lead to a better than expected outcome whereas setting the bar lower on goals means leaving a lot more for the future. Alternatively, pushing the limits of what is feasible might lead to an outright rejection of the proposals, shutting out the possibility of incremental progress. What is the right approach? There is no universal answer. The context and the personalities of the individuals involved will determine the answer.

Having read the commentaries of both Seetha and Jain, I checked the web to see if any other commentaries were available. On 2 September, Harish Damodaran had written a brilliant commentary on why restrictions on stockholding and export of pulses must go. It is a masterclass in development economics. I recall this very well from the course on development economics that I audited while I was at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst early in the 1990s. Of the many lessons I learnt there, one of was the feature of ‘urban bias’ in policymaking.

Tomes of literature in Development Economics on the urban bias in policymaking are summarised in that op-ed by Damodaran. Sample this:

He is, unfortunately, right. As I mentioned earlier, Damodaran not only summarises the literature on urban bias in policymaking that is very familiar to development economists but also shows up the inability and the failure of the policymaking establishment (that includes bureaucrats too) to appreciate lags in policy and impact.

Finally, he reminds us of the unintended consequences on Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation targeting in an economy where CPI has a 46 percent weight assigned to food and where production structures are fragmented.

Does it lead to price ceilings on farm produce for the sake of meeting a numerical inflation target? Will the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) take the broader view and be prepared to write letters to the central government, even allowing for an overshoot up to the upper limit of the band? Or, should the government and the RBI have gone for a core CPI target that excluded food but not energy?

Alternatively, would it have been better to wait until food became progressively less important to CPI basket, so that what happened to farmers’ prices did not affect CPI so much, giving more policy freedom on boosting farm income and productivity? That would happen when the economy roughly doubles from its current size of Rs 13,40,000 crore (US$2 trillion).

His column throws up these questions.

That said, Damodaran was not entirely right (nor entirely wrong) in his piece written in June 2016 on Raghuram Rajan and RBI’s CPI target pointing to deflation in wholesale prices (Wholesale Price Index or WPI). That was an extreme example as WPI is not representative of the overall economy. It is heavily skewed towards manufacturing whereas the economy is dominated by services. So, he is not very correct in using WPI as the deflator to calculate real rate. But, he is right to point out that, given the importance of food to the CPI basket, a CPI target imparts an anti-farmer bias to monetary policy. RBI should be mindful of that.

He is also wrong in attributing farmer-unfriendly policies to the inflation target of RBI:

The simple fact is that these were being resorted to even when India did not have a CPI inflation target for monetary policy.

The urban bias in policymaking has been an endemic feature in India and in other developing countries too. These policymakers are the ones who made it to civil service and yet had no clue about the rural side. The solution is not to replace one bias with another by only hiring candidates from rural India – affirmative action – although that can be part of the solution as long as minimum standards of competence are maintained.

It is trite but not incorrect to stress on sustained education and exposure of policymakers and incentives to get it right and disincentives for getting it wrong. Writing op-eds is easier.

Also Read:

Not On The Pulse: Subramanian Panel Sticks To Standard Tropes On The Problem Of Pulse Prices