Amit's Blog

India’s Path to Upper-Middle-Income Status by 2050: Challenges and Opportunities   India, with its 1.4 billion people and rapidly growing economy, stands at a critical juncture in its development trajectory. Eighty years ago, most countries that were poor remained so, with rare exceptions like oil-rich nations aligned with the United States or those benefiting from US-led security and economic support, such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. China’s remarkable rise since the 1980s offers a partial exception, though it has not yet fully transitioned to high-income status. India, lacking vast natural resources or a geopolitical patron, faces a unique challenge: can it achieve upper-middle-income country (UMIC) status, defined by the World Bank as a GNI per capita between $4,516 and $14,005 (2024 thresholds), within the next 25 years? This essay explores India’s prospects, drawing on historical precedents, current economic trends, and expert insights. It examines whether India ...

  Part 6 – India’s Challenges   Demographic dividend refers to the growth in an economy that is the result of a change in the age structure of a country's population. The change in age structure is typically brought on by a decline in fertility and mortality rates. Demographic dividend occurs when the proportion of working people in the total population is high because this indicates that more people have the potential to be productive and contribute to growth of the economy. In essence, there’s a period in nation’s progress when longevity is increasing and working age population is large in proportion to the old age population. The median age is low. This is when the nation is best positioned to move forward. India has 62.5% of its population in the age group of 15-59 years which is ever increasing and will be at the peak around 2036 when it will reach approximately 65%. These population parameters indicate an availability of demographic dividend in India, which started...

  Part 4 – The two dominant economies of the world over the last 150 years In this, the fourth part of this series we take a look at The UK and The USA. The former was the dominant world economy for a whole century, up until the first world war. Even now, The UK ranks among the top 6 economies of the world and enjoys a per capita income level of USD 40,000. The United States has been the dominant power for the last 100 years. Both these countries have stark differences from Japan and Asia in the way their demography has developed. Both have taken in a lot of immigrants over the past 100 years (The USA for even longer. It’s a country that was built by immigrants). This is in sharp contrast to the Asian giants who have a unidimensional character. The UK The fertility trajectory for The UK is significantly different from that of the Asian Economies. To start with, it was much lower at around 3.5 during 1900 and dropped rapidly to 2 by the end of WW1. Post the great war, it quick...