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Surjit Bhalla

Surjit S. Bhalla is an Indian economist, author, and policy advisor known for his empirical analyses of , , and growth in emerging markets. He holds a B.S. in from (1969), an M.P.A. from Princeton University's School (1972), and a Ph.D. in from Princeton (1976). Bhalla founded and chairs Oxus Research and Investments, a New Delhi-based firm specializing in economic research, , and emerging markets advisory. His career includes roles at the , , , and investment firms such as and , as well as teaching at the . Bhalla served as Executive Director for , , , and at the from November 2019 to October 2022. He is a part-time member of Narendra Modi's and currently chairs the of India's of Statistics and Programme Implementation committee on household income distribution estimation. Bhalla has contributed to policy through memberships in committees on (1999, 2006) and as chairperson of the High Level Advisory Group on Trade (2018–2019). His publications challenge conventional narratives on poverty and inequality with data-driven arguments, including books such as Imagine There's No Country: Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in the Era of Globalization (2002), which posits that globalization has significantly reduced global poverty, and The New Wealth of Nations (2018), advocating for universal basic income funded by economic growth dividends. Other works cover India's elections in Citizen Raj (2020), currency policy in Devaluing to Prosperity (2012), and cricket economics in Criconomics (2010). Bhalla has authored over 1,500 opinion pieces, including as a contributing editor for The Indian Express (2010–2019), emphasizing evidence-based policy over ideological priors.

Early Life and Education

Upbringing and Academic Background

Surjit Bhalla was born on August 15, 1948, in , on the day of the nation's . Bhalla completed his with a in (B.S.E.E.) from between 1965 and 1969. After a brief stint as a programming analyst at from 1969 to 1970, he shifted focus to and . He earned a (M.P.A.) from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs in 1972, followed by a Ph.D. in economics from in 1976. During his doctoral studies, Bhalla engaged in research at the as a from 1974 to 1976 and later as a post-doctoral fellow at the in 1976. His early academic output included empirical studies on economic expectations and rural household behavior, such as "Direct Measurement of Popular Price Expectations" co-authored in 1975 and analyses of savings sources and permanent income measurement errors in rural published in 1978 and 1979, respectively, which highlighted a methodological emphasis on data from developing economies. Bhalla taught economics at the , where he instructed on topics aligning with his research interests in and empirical economics.

Professional Career

Research and International Institutions

Bhalla began his career as an economist at the , where he contributed to empirical studies on economic behavior in developing contexts, including a 1978 report analyzing measurement errors in income data and their implications for the using evidence from rural . At the , he focused on macroeconomic transmission mechanisms, authoring analyses on how global affected developing economies, as detailed in contributions to the 1981 volume World Inflation and the Developing Countries. These works emphasized data-driven econometric modeling to assess causal links between shocks and domestic outcomes, prioritizing verifiable household survey data over aggregate assumptions. Subsequently, Bhalla served in both the research and treasury departments of the , conducting studies on and development finance during the , such as a 1986 paper in The World Bank Economic Review examining farm size productivity relationships through cross-country . His research there advanced quantitative assessments of determinants, critiquing overly simplistic metrics by integrating consumption and income distributions from primary surveys to derive more robust poverty estimates. This period's outputs highlighted methodological rigor, using regression-based decompositions to isolate policy impacts from structural factors in low-income economies. From late 2019 to 2022, Bhalla was appointed for at the , representing alongside , , and on the Executive Board. In this role, he participated in deliberations on , lending programs, and , advocating for evidence-based reforms amid post-pandemic recovery discussions. His involvement extended to technical contributions on measurement, drawing on IMF working papers that refined headcount ratios via updated adjustments and microdata validation, countering biases in legacy datasets.

Private Sector Ventures and Consulting

Bhalla founded Oxus Research & Investments in 1997 and served as its chairman until 2016. The New Delhi-based firm conducted economic research, managed portfolios, and provided advisory services on emerging markets, operating in a manner comparable to a . From 1986 to 1990, while on leave from the , Bhalla acted as of the Policy Group in , recognized as India's inaugural non-government-funded dedicated to independent policy research. In additional consulting capacities, Bhalla served as Senior India Analyst for the Group, a New York-based firm, from April 2015 to September 2018, delivering macroeconomic analysis and forecasts tailored to investment strategies. He has further extended quantitative approaches to election punditry, developing statistical models to project outcomes in Indian polls, as evidenced by his predictions of seat gains in 2024.

Policy Advisory Positions

Surjit Bhalla served as a part-time member of the to the (EAC-PM), reconstituted in September 2017 and chaired by . During his tenure, Bhalla contributed to discussions on accelerating , including recommendations to adhere to fiscal consolidation targets amid industry calls for stimulus, as the Indian economy faced a slowdown to 5.7% growth in the first quarter of 2017-18. The council, in its initial meetings, outlined roadmaps emphasizing investments and structural reforms to boost growth indicators. Bhalla resigned from the EAC-PM effective December 1, 2018, stating in his request that he intended to join another organization, as confirmed by a 's Office spokesperson. His departure was accepted promptly by . In September 2018, the Department of Commerce constituted the on Policy, with Bhalla as chairperson, to formulate strategies enhancing India's global role amid rising . The group, including members like , submitted recommendations in 2019, advocating reductions to capitalize on opportunities such as the US-China tensions and simplified regulatory frameworks for foreign investors. More recently, in 2025, Bhalla was appointed chairperson of the Technical Expert Group under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to develop methodology for India's first nationwide household income survey, aiming to provide empirical data for policy formulation on income distribution.

Intellectual Contributions

Publications and Books

Bhalla's seminal work Imagine There's No Country: Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in the Era of Globalization, published in 2002, utilizes household survey data from over 100 countries spanning 1980 to 2000 to argue that global poverty declined by approximately 260 million people during this period, with faster growth in poorer nations driving income convergence when measured at the individual level rather than national aggregates. The book empirically demonstrates that integration into global markets correlates with reduced between-country inequality, attributing this to trade liberalization and capital flows that enable catch-up growth, countering claims of rising global inequality by adjusting for purchasing power parity and population weights. In Devaluing to : Misaligned Currencies and Their Consequences (2012), Bhalla analyzes data from more than 100 countries over a century to establish that deliberate currency undervaluation—by 20-40% relative to —has boosted export-led and GDP increases by 1-2 percentage points annually in developing economies. Drawing on models incorporating institutional quality and rates, the posits a causal mechanism where undervaluation enhances competitiveness, attracts , and sustains trade surpluses, evidenced by cases like and post-World War II, while overvaluation correlates with stagnation. The New Wealth of Nations (2017) employs cross-national datasets on schooling attainment and from 1970 onward to quantify how educational expansion in developing countries has shifted over 70% of the global to erstwhile poor nations, reducing world from a Gini coefficient of 0.70 in 1970 to around 0.60 by 2010. Bhalla's analysis links rising rates to labor force participation gains and household income growth, using models to value stocks and argue that market-oriented policies amplifying returns have driven this "new wealth" creation. Bhalla has also contributed peer-reviewed papers on , including " and in " (2025), which evaluates post-2016 adoption to assess impacts on and output gaps, finding that flexible targeting anchored expectations without significant trade-offs based on estimates. Earlier, in "Macro Effects of Formal Adoption of " (2023, co-authored), he examines from 50 countries, showing that formal regimes reduced by 2-3 points on average while preserving neutrality, via event-study methods isolating adoption effects from global trends. These works emphasize empirical scrutiny of policy transmission mechanisms, prioritizing over theoretical priors.

Key Economic Analyses on Employment and Poverty

Bhalla estimated that India created 15 million jobs in 2017, combining (EPFO) data indicating about 3 million formal sector additions for the 15-24 age group with (CMIE) survey results showing 12 million jobs for the 25-64 age group. This figure contrasted sharply with (NSSO) estimates, which Bhalla criticized for undercounting due to reliance on infrequent, large-scale household surveys prone to sampling errors and definitional inconsistencies, such as the shift to weekly status metrics in Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS). He described PLFS unemployment rates as a "statistical embarrassment," arguing that the data's anomalies—such as reported job losses amid observable economic expansion—stemmed from poor questionnaire design and failure to capture informal sector dynamics, which dominate India's labor market. Bhalla advocated for alternative metrics like EPFO payroll additions and CMIE's continuous tracking, which better reflect causal links between economic growth and employment, particularly post-2014 reforms that spurred formalization. By 2024, he asserted that annual job creation averaged around 10 million, unprecedented in independent India, driven by verifiable inflows into organized sectors. In poverty analysis, Bhalla utilized the 2022-23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) to estimate extreme poverty headcount ratios near zero against the international $2.15 (2017 ) line, with only about 1% of the below this threshold by 2024 projections, marking elimination from over 12% a prior. This empirical finding, derived from direct consumption data rather than proxies like multidimensional indices, underscored the causal impact of sustained expenditure growth—averaging 11.9% annually for the bottom quintile—over anecdotal or survey-inferred metrics prone to underreporting. Bhalla prioritized HCES for its granularity on rural-urban divides, rejecting critiques that dismissed the survey's validity without addressing its alignment with independent retail and asset ownership trends. Bhalla attributed fluctuations in female labor force participation rate (LFPR) to data quality flaws in surveys from 2004-05 to 2011-12, where sharp reported declines masked undercounting of unpaid family work and amid rising levels that temporarily pulled women from low-productivity roles. He argued that genuine causal drivers include expanded schooling reducing early and enabling skilled entry, alongside policy-enabled rural opportunities like agricultural and non-farm ventures. PLFS data from the 2020s corroborates a rebound, with female LFPR climbing from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 37% in 2022-23, primarily in rural (up 12 percentage points), which Bhalla viewed as structural progress verifiable against enrollment surges—female participation rose over 30% in the decade—rather than distress-induced artifacts.

Fiscal and Monetary Policy Views

Bhalla has advocated for significant tax rate reductions in India's , particularly emphasizing cuts to enhance middle-class , which he notes has declined relative to levels despite rising collections driven by higher rates rather than broader . In anticipation of the 2025-26 Union Budget, he described it as a pivotal "1991-like moment" requiring bold reforms, including policy changes to facilitate increased (FDI) by addressing regulatory hurdles and inconsistencies that have deterred inflows. Bhalla critiques high -to-GDP ratios in developing economies like , arguing they constrain growth incentives by reducing incentives for investment and consumption, and prioritizes such cuts over corporate tax relief to stimulate demand-led expansion. On monetary policy, Bhalla has assessed India's inflation targeting (IT) regime, introduced in 2016, as having negligible direct impact on price stability, with inflation moderation observable in non-IT economies as well, suggesting global factors and supply-side dynamics play larger roles. In a 2025 analysis co-authored with researchers, he highlighted how the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) initial pursuit of high real interest rates—reaching levels among the world's highest, with India's real repo rate projected as the second-highest globally by 2018—to build IT credibility inadvertently deterred investment and hampered growth. Bhalla recommends policy adjustments toward lower real rates aligned with sustainable inflation (around 4.5%), arguing that excessively tight monetary stances overlook investment deterrence and fail to account for India's structural economic needs. Bhalla links long-term fiscal outcomes to post-Independence policy errors, particularly the neglect of primary and investments, which he identifies as a critical blunder disrupting formation and causal pathways to sustained growth, unlike more education-focused strategies in comparator economies like . This oversight, in his view, perpetuated low traps, underscoring the need for fiscal priorities that emphasize growth-enabling public spending over expansive government outlays that crowd out private incentives.

Political and Economic Commentary

Support for Market-Oriented Reforms

Bhalla has credited the administration's pro-business policies with driving significant job creation, estimating approximately 10 million new jobs annually over the preceding 7-8 years as of 2024, a pace he described as unprecedented in Indian history. He attributes this expansion to continuations of measures that facilitated private sector-led growth, contrasting it with slower gains in prior periods. On poverty alleviation, Bhalla has argued that effectively eliminated —defined as living below $1.90 per day in terms—by the early 2020s, drawing on household consumption surveys rather than contested data. He links this outcome to market-oriented initiatives under Modi, including programs and eased business regulations, which boosted household incomes and consumption, with rates falling to near zero by 2022-23 based on adjusted survey extrapolations. Advocating for renewed vigor in reforms, Bhalla called in early 2025 for a "1991-style shake-up" in India's economy, emphasizing sweeping , substantial reductions without incremental adjustments, and of and investment to counteract regulatory overreach and bureaucratic inertia he termed a "deep state" hindrance to growth. Such measures, he contended, would replicate the 1991 liberalization's success in dismantling barriers, devaluing the currency strategically, and unleashing private enterprise to achieve higher growth trajectories amid global opportunities like potential U.S. policy shifts. In international context, Bhalla has used household survey data to challenge narratives of persistent Indian poverty, asserting that India's market-driven outperforms state-directed models like China's, where comparable metrics show India's record as superior since the early 2000s. He highlights verified consumption figures indicating India's levels converging with or surpassing China's by the , underscoring the efficacy of and private incentives over centralized planning in fostering equitable outcomes.

Critiques of Pre-2014 Economic Policies

Bhalla has contended that the (UPA) administration from 2004 to 2014 marked the slowest period of expansion in modern , with annual job additions averaging just 1.4 million over its seven-year span, a figure derived from labor force survey adjustments accounting for demographic shifts and educational enrollment increases. This stagnation contrasted sharply with prior decades, as levels dipped by approximately 6 million from the 434 million peak in 2011-12 to pre-2014 figures, attributing the shortfall to regulatory hurdles and fiscal policies that deterred private investment in labor-intensive sectors. In analyses of sectoral performance, Bhalla highlighted policy failures under that exacerbated manufacturing stagnation, where shares remained flat despite global opportunities, due to persistent , land acquisition bottlenecks, and over-reliance on subsidies that crowded out productive investments. Services, too, saw subdued formalization, with casualization trends masking underlying growth impediments from inverted tax structures and bureaucratic delays, leading to what he terms empirically verifiable "jobless growth" rather than inherent economic deceleration. Bhalla has critiqued official unemployment narratives from the era, arguing that metrics like the National Sample Survey Organisation's usual status approach overstated joblessness by underweighting and informal work, which constituted over 80% of the workforce; he advocates consumption-based proxies and PLFS-adjusted estimates showing rates below 6% even in 2011-12, dismissing politically influenced survey designs as distorting causal realities of over outright scarcity. Extending to foundational policy lapses, Bhalla identifies post-Independence neglect of primary and infrastructure as a core causal error, with public spending skewed toward and elite institutions, resulting in rates lagging China's by over 20 percentage points by 2000 and perpetuating intergenerational that contradicted egalitarian rhetoric from socialist-leaning policymakers. This underinvestment, he argues, entrenched skill mismatches and reduced returns, fostering dependency on low-productivity rather than scalable equity through market-driven skill acquisition.

Controversies and Criticisms

Employment Data Disputes

In December 2018, reported accusations against Surjit Bhalla, then a member of the Prime Minister's , of "inventing" an estimate of 15 million jobs created in 2017 by selectively combining data from the (CMIE)'s consumer surveys and the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) payroll records. Critics argued this figure patched incomparable sources—CMIE's sample-based employment metrics with EPFO's formal sector administrative data—yielding an unreliable aggregate that ignored broader labor market realities. This contrasted sharply with National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) estimates from the 2011-12 survey, which indicated near-zero net job addition, and later leaked Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data for 2017-18 showing urban at 6.1%, the highest in decades. Bhalla defended his by prioritizing verifiable, high-frequency administrative data like EPFO net additions (around 8-10 million in formal sectors) and CMIE's continuous household surveys over NSSO's quinquennial or infrequent sampling, which he critiqued for undercounting due to small sample sizes, urban-rural mismatches, and failure to capture informal sector dynamics or new labor force entrants from the demographic bulge. In joint work with Tirthatanmoy , he refined the estimate to 12.8 million jobs by principal status, arguing that NSSO's low figures defied economic : with GDP growth at 7% and 10-12 million annual labor force entrants (primarily ), zero job creation implied implausible hidden or , unverified by data. Left-leaning outlets like framed Bhalla's reliance on non-official sources as evidence of pro-government bias, selectively amplifying formal sector gains while downplaying survey-based distress signals amid demonetization's aftermath. Conversely, proponents of alternative data, including Bhalla's analyses in and Financial Express, validated CMIE and EPFO's predictive power, as subsequent years' data (e.g., post-2019 PLFS revisions and CMIE trends) aligned more closely with administrative records showing net job recovery exceeding 20 million by 2022, underscoring NSSO's periodic surveys as less reliable for assessment.

Responses to Accusations and Broader Reception

Bhalla resigned as a part-time member of the Prime Minister's (EAC-PM) on December 1, 2018, emphasizing his commitment to analytical independence amid institutional influences, such as reported dissatisfaction with NITI Aayog's role in GDP revisions. In subsequent commentary, he has defended the empirical integrity of official datasets, asserting that the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) provides robust evidence of job creation trends, countering narratives of systemic data unreliability propagated by select critics. Critiques of perceived conflicts arising from Bhalla's concurrent roles in —highlighted by a 2017 SEBI penalty of Rs 10 imposed on his firm Oxus Partners for regulatory lapses—and his activities as a and have been addressed by highlighting the of his quantitative expertise across , , and , which he argues enables holistic, data-driven evaluations rather than siloed biases. These multifaceted engagements, while drawing opprobrium for potential divided loyalties, underscore his application of statistical methods to real-world domains, including market investments and public commentary. Bhalla's broader reception among economists reflects polarization: proponents of market reforms laud his empirical deconstructions of overstated and claims, citing proxies like (EPFO) additions and (CMIE) metrics to demonstrate unprecedented job growth under post-2014 policies, with estimates of 15 million net jobs in 2017 alone. Such analyses have earned acclaim for challenging pessimistic baselines rooted in selective data interpretations. In contrast, left-leaning media outlets have frequently depicted him as a advocate, amplifying accusations of methodological cherry-picking in his support for pro-growth narratives, though these portrayals often overlook the verifiable proxies he employs. His election forecasting, including a 2024 projection of 330-350 seats for the BJP, has fueled debates on predictive reliability, with outcomes varying from his models and underscoring the challenges of polling in diverse electorates.

Recent Developments and Ongoing Work

Post-2020 Analyses and Recommendations

In early 2025, Bhalla characterized internal and from as a rational economic response to persistent policy shortcomings that hinder income growth, emphasizing that individuals seek better opportunities when domestic stagnates relative to global benchmarks. He referenced 's of Rs 2.31 for 2024-25, an 8.7% rise from the prior year, as evidence of but insufficient to stem outflows without deeper reforms in labor and skill development. This view aligns with his that surges correlate with regulatory barriers rather than inherent economic failure, urging to retain talent and boost remittances' impact. Ahead of the Union Budget 2025-26, Bhalla recommended aggressive tax rate reductions for individuals—targeting slabs above Rs 10 lakh—and streamlined foreign direct investment (FDI) approvals to alleviate middle-class disposable income erosion, which he quantified as a 5-7% real decline since 2020 due to inflation and compliance burdens. He advocated a "1991-style shake-up," including scrapping protectionist tariffs that chill private investment, arguing high effective tax rates (up to 42% including surcharges) deter capex and exacerbate fiscal deficits without proportional revenue gains. In critiquing industrial policy, Bhalla highlighted the 2024-25 India Industrial Development Report's findings on over-reliance on subsidies, recommending market-driven incentives over sector-specific PLI schemes to achieve 8-9% sustained manufacturing growth. Bhalla chairs the Government of India's Technical Expert Group on the National Household Income Survey (NHIS), launched in June 2025 for a February 2026 rollout, positioning it as a tool to empirically validate GDP growth claims against household-level data on earnings, expenditures, and transfers. He stressed the survey's role in resolving narrative disputes over by capturing granular sources like farm s and gig work, potentially confirming poverty below 1% at $2.15 while exposing underreported urban consumption. Pre-testing in October 2025 revealed respondent hesitancy on disclosure (95% uncomfortable), prompting Bhalla's push for protocols to ensure over politically motivated suppression. This initiative underscores his emphasis on first-hand metrics to guide targeting, avoiding reliance on aggregated proxies prone to bias.

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