Ep 9: Policy Mistakes We Can't Unsee

It is never difficult to find these.

You just have to read a week's newspaper.

You will always find a few of them.

So it's very easy to find.

So actually, what we thought is when we were writing RSA and I, we often came across these kind of egregious policies.

Right.

And we.

After a point of time, we thought, man, this is becoming a huge list.

So why don't we compile it together? And in fact, in our book, Missing in Action, there were many of these also put together.

So now it is, I think once a week, I definitely find one.

And then it's just about finding the time to write about it and find better evidence, better examples.

So it's quite fun.

So what are we starting with today? Right.

So as you can guess, I have more than 100 of them, but I have to constrain myself and talk about something which I wanted to.

So I'm going to exclude all the big ones, demonetization and things like that, which we have discussed before.

And also the one which we should probably do in another episode, which is how minimum support prices led to Delhi pollution.

Maybe we'll do that later.

But one I wanted to talk about today is my favorite one from the last 10 years.

So that is about how pro-business protectionism led to less employment opportunities for Indian women.

Okay, so now let me explain what is the causality.

So first thing we know that the largest employer of women in India in the formal sector is the textile industry, right? So 46% of all Indian women in manufacturing sector work are just in the apparel and textile sectors combined, right? So it's a huge employer.

So the more the employment in this sector, it's a nice indicator for some of the questions we did in the episode one, which Shruti mentioned about where have all the women gone.

So let's talk about this sector, right? now.

And in this sector, what we've seen, and we know many of our viewers will also know that India is not doing very well.

And since 2011, in fact, India has been doing terribly in this sector, our share of exports in the global market has gone down in this, whereas Bangladesh, Vietnam, etc, have become a lot better in this.