📍VALUES AND ECONOMICS
There is research25 in psychology and evolutionary biology which shows that morality, altruism, and other-regarding values are an innate part of the human mind, even though the social setting in which a person lives can nurture or stunt these traits.
● Important Points :-
💡In talking about a nation’s economic progress, all attention, including both praise and criticism, is usually focused on the government.
💡Honesty, punctuality, the propensity to keep promises, the attitude towards corruption are matters shaped in great part by norms, and social beliefs and the behaviour patterns can become
habitual.
📍INSIGHTS INTO HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
The World Bank in its latest report (World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behaviour) said that development policies become more efective when combined with insights into human behaviour. It further adds that policy decisions informes by behavioural economics can deliver impressive improvements in promoting development and well-being in society.
● Important Points :-
It sites some examples from India in areas of healthcare and education:
💡The Open defecation dropped 11
cent from very high levels after a Community- Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme was combined in some chosen villages with the standard approach of subsidies for toilet construction and information on the transmission of diseases.
💡The likelihood of default on loans became three times less with a simple change in the periodicity of meetings between microfnance clients and their repayment groups to weekly rather than monthly.
📍SOCIAL NORMS , CULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT
Economic development is not only dependent on fiscal policy, monetary policy and taxation, but is also rooted in human psychology, sociology, culture and norms. In economics, there has been a bit of resistance in emphasising other aspects of development, because it is thought of giving ground to the neighbouring disciplines .
● Important Points :-
💡The recent World Development Report of 2015 focuses on the behavioural and social foundations of development, and has been very well received.
💡Government documents (generally, hard-nosed), usually, make no mention of the role of social norms and culture in promoting development and economic efciency.
📍PRIME MOVING FORCE : AGRICULTURE VS INDUSTRY
A topical issue of the debate regarding India has been the choice for the sector which will lead the process of development. The government of the time opted for industry to be India’s prime moving force of the economy.
● Important Points :-
💡Every economy has to go for its development through exploitation of its natural and human resources.
💡The political leadership selected industry as the leading force of the economy after Independence— this was already decided by the dominant group of the nationalist leaders way back in the mid-1930s when they felt the need for economic planning in India before setting up the National Planning Committee in 1938.
📍PLANNED AND MIXED ECONOMY
Independent India was declared to be a planned and a mixed economy. India needed national planning, which was decided by the political leadership almost a decade before Independence.India was not only facing regional disparities at the level of resources, but inter-regional disparities were also prevalent, since centuries.
● Important Points :-
💡The dominant force behind planning in India, at least after Independence, was Nehru himself who had strong socialist leanings.
💡By early 2015, we saw some major changes taking place in the area of planning in India. THE Government replaced the existing body, Planning Commission, with the NITI Aayog .
