Macroeconomic target setting has now become a joke and needs review

The time has come to start questioning this target setting business. Since 2009 these targets for financial stability have become a joke everywhere.

During Budget time there is a lot of chatter about macroeconomic targets. Coronavirus (Covid-19) has brought these targets into very sharp focus this year because in the last two years they have all gone awry, all over the world.

India has been struggling with targets and targeting since the 1991 crisis. Since then it has been setting targets every year for all sorts of things like the fiscal deficit, the inflation rate, employment and GDP growth rates and the exchange rate. No one one takes these seriously.

For example, Budget 2021-22 had set a fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent against