Economic Survey 2013: Difference between Raghuram Rajan's and Kaushik Basu's survey

Is there a Raghuram Rajan stamp on the Economic Survey 2012-13? Yes and no. While following the broad pattern of previous Surveys, Rajan has brought his own touch to an otherwise austere document. For one, it's a leaner, but not necessarily a meaner.

But that's not all. ET brings you a list of what’s different in this year’s Survey as compared with the Survey prepared by his predecessor, Kaushik Basu.

In a first, the Survey opens with an Introduction by Rajan where he lists three key objectives–reviving growth to provide jobs, shifting from consumption to investment-led growth and macroeconomic stabilisation to reduce infl ation, fiscal deficit and current account deficit–and the challenges in achieving them.

It’s a more concise document – 13 chapters, 294 pages and 127 statistical tables. (Chapters on Industry and Sustainable Development & Climate Change are shorter.) Basu’s 2011-12 survey was a longer document–14 chapters, 357 pages but only 125 statistical tables. The government will save Rs 15 lakh from the shorter survey.

Special chapter on Seizing The Demographic Dividend bluntly states, "Policy makers are usually focused on short-run economic management issues. But the short run has to be a bridge to the long run." Basu had a special chapter devoted to Microfoundations Of Macroeconomic Policy.

Share in world trade: Years from Takeoff

Nineteen years after take-off, India’s trade performance, as measured by share in world trade, is almost identical to China’s, superior by far to Indonesia’s and below South Korea’s. But then, it took China, too, 24 years to catch up with Korea on this measure. The innovative graphic on the Survey’s cover suggests that India’s trade story could well be poised to turn into the fairy tale China’s has been.