Govt 'not calling it right', must boost spending in Covid: Abhijit Banerjee

Nobel Laureate says it is 'not clear at all' if bond markets would react negatively to moves to avert crisis.

India’s government could be spending more to help its population of almost 1.4 billion weather the economic devastation from the country’s explosive second wave of Covid-19 infections, according to Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee.

It’s “not clear at all” that bond markets would react negatively to such moves made to avert “an ongoing series of crises,” said Banerjee, 60, who was co-recipient of the 2019 Nobel prize for economic science for his work on poverty alleviation.

“I’m not sure the government is calling it right,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, who also chairs a Covid advisory council to the state