Today’s GDP release, and in particular how the economy has adapted, a thread.👇

After 6 months of growth, the economy started shrinking again in November as tighter restrictions were in place. (Though there were variations across Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.) (1/n)
The economy shrank by 2.6% in November. In normal times this would be a significant downturn, but it is much smaller than the falls seen with the first restrictions in the spring: April GDP fell by around 20%. In that sense it is good news. But why the smaller fall? (2/n)
Firstly, some industries remain very depressed. Airlines (air transport in the chart) for example, were operating at very low levels in October so there wasn’t much further for their output to fall. This is different from the picture in Mar/Apr. (3/n)
The same is true, though perhaps less pronounced, for bars/restaurants and other parts of the service sector. (4/n)
Secondly, some sections of the economy have undergone a structural shift that has allowed them to continue to meet demand/produce output. Perhaps the best example is in retail. Overall sales in November were higher than pre-pandemic despite the restrictions. (5/n)
This is due, in part, to the shift online, which allowed sales to continue when shops were shut. These structural shifts create winners (on-line retailers) and losers (high-street), so a positive overall story can hide some significant distress for some businesses. (6/n)
There are also knock-on effects of this move on-line, with courier/postal services seeing growth through the pandemic. (7/n)
And there have been wider changes: food retailers have gained at the expenses of restaurants, and home improvement shops have benefited as consumers appeared to shift expenditure from other activities such as holidays and travel. (8/n)
Whether these changes are permanent or temporary, we will have to wait to see. (9/n)
Thirdly, individual industries (and businesses) have become more resilient to the restrictions. We saw big falls in construction during the first set of national restrictions, but continued growth during the November restrictions. (10/n)
This is likely due to social distancing in workplaces, etc. that have allowed operations to continue. (11/n)
Overall, the economic impacts are smaller this time. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the economy has still taken a large hit from the pandemic, and beneath the surface there are hugely different experiences for different sectors, businesses and people. (ENDS)

More from Economy

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is analyzing damage due to COVID and projecting further severe consequences if current policies persist. They state “despite involving short term economic costs, lockdowns may lead to faster economic recovery by containing the virus”

1/


Note: This report doesn’t do a dynamic analysis that makes things much clearer, but it does a thoughtful statistical analysis based upon increasingly available data.

https://t.co/5Xmt8y7lCL

A few more quotes:

2/


“The analysis also finds that lockdowns are powerful instruments to reduce infections, especially when they are introduced early in a country’s epidemic and when they are sufficiently stringent.”

3/


“lockdowns become progressively more effective in reducing COVID-19 cases when they become sufficiently stringent. Mild lockdowns appear instead ineffective at curbing infections.”

4/

“The results suggest that to achieve a given reduction in infections, policymakers may want to opt for stringent lockdowns over a shorter period rather than prolonged mild lockdowns...

5/
True that all the people cherishing the support of IMF or WTO for farm reforms need to cool it down a bit, because that is a model we do not want to emulate to the t in India here.

But here are some issues that deserve to be better discussed by all:


1. People who say we are emulating the Western model of agriculture are way off with this assumption. The process of primitive accumulation, the alienation of their people from their land and the way these 'first-world' countries have pushed their people into Industrial sector +

+ was a merciless phase.
But the same assumption won't work for India, because we have always had a large workforce in agriculture, agri subsidies have always run high, protection has been the hallmark of agriculture and rural representation in the parliament has always been+

+ high. Still, it is our utter failure from the beginning that we have not been able to incentivize the movement of our people to other lucrative sectors.

2. This brings us to the another point of providing MSP on all the commodities and the demand side of the issue that we+

+ conveniently ignore. Here's the thing, Food prices in India have about 65-70% weight in calculating the Consumer Price Index and 25-30% of wholesale price index. These indices affect the general price level in the economy i.e. the inflation. If MSP is offered on all the+

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