RBI is Trying to Do Something Impossible
Amidst the on-going severe recession in the Indian economy, the Indian central bank RBI is trying to do something impossible. Driven by its Keynesian logic of lack of aggregate demand as the root cause of the recession, RBI is trying to boost both consumption and investment at the same time. In its recently published bi-annual Financial Stability Report RBI said , Aggregate demand has slumped in Q2FY20 … Reviving the twin engines of consumption and investment while being vigilant about spillovers from global financial markets remains a critical challenge going forward. This is theoretically and practically an impossible task. Let us see why. Income, Consumption, Saving and Investment Both consumption and investment come from income and so we need to see the definition of income first. Income refers to the flow of new consumer goods (and services) that an individual has the potential to acquire during a period of time ( Murphy 2010 ). A ...