India: Selected Issues

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the factors behind the unprecedented widening of India’s current account deficit in terms of the sectoral savings-investment balance. Persistently high inflation is found to have depressed real returns, prompting a surge in gold imports and a marked deterioration in household financial savings. The paper investigates inward and outward spillovers to and from India. The results show that output shocks emanating in globally systemic countries have important global effects, but their impact on India is limited. It is found that shocks originating in India have relatively small global implications, but are very important for several South Asian economies.