Macroeconomic Policy: Implications for Inclusive Growth

This article addresses the issue of past and future types of monetary-fiscal coordination that can deliver inclusive growth and low inflation in the Indian context. After India's Independence, monetary policy was subordinated to planned development and, therefore, implicitly directed at inclusion. But large areas of the economy were still not monetised, and the modern sector was small. So inclusion was about expanding the sphere of the modern economy. Once a populous emerging market (EM) crosses a critical threshold and high catch-up growth is established, higher labour mobility blurs the distinction between the formal and informal sectors. A macroeconomics of the aggregate economy becomes both necessary and feasible. Since monetary policy affects a larger part of the economy, it can directly affect inclusion by affecting the pace of job creation. But bottlenecks that raise costs, pushing up the price at which any level of output is available, can force monetary tightening. If fiscal policies are redesigned for active inclusion that expands human capacity, makes more productive labour available, and reduces wasteful distortions, monetary policy can better support the objective of inclusive growth. The change in the type and efficacy of government policies designed for inclusion required has become politically and technologically feasible.