Advancing India’s Structural Transformation and Catch-up to the Technology Frontier

Cristian Alonso and Margaux MacDonald

No 2024/138, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: While India’s growth has been strong in recent decades, its structural transformation remains incomplete. In this paper, we first take stock of India’s growth to date. We find that economic activity has shifted from agriculture to services, but agriculture remains the predominant employer. Catch up to the technological frontier has been uneven, with limited progress in agriculture, but also in construction and trade, which have grown the most in terms of employment. We do find some Indian firms already operating at the technological frontier. These strong performers tend to be large firms. We then consider India’s employment challenge going forward. We find that India needs to create between 143-324 million jobs by 2050 and that doing so and with workers shifting towards more dynamic sectors could boost GDP growth by 0.2-0.5 percentage points. Structural reforms can help India create high-quality jobs and accelerate growth.

Keywords: Economywide Production; Potential Output; Labor Productivity; Employment; Structural Transformation; Technological Frontier.; frontier employment; India's employment challenge; technology frontier; growth decomposition; IMF staff estimate; industry level; Agricultural sector; Productivity; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2024-07-09
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