Articles by Sanjeev Gupta

Social safety nets are critical for mitigating the costs of crises and adjustment programmes. This paper reviews best practices in the design and implementation of safety nets. The main lessons suggest that the following are critical: having safety net instruments in place before crises occur; information on vulnerable groups to facilitate targeting; levels of spending that are adequate for this task yet consistent with sound macroeconomic policy; and administrative capacity. In this context, food-based safety nets can be an attractive option when administrative capacity is scarce, as they are conducive to self-targeting. In assessing options for minimising the adverse effects of policies on the poor and the need for social safety nets, poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) can be a useful policy tool. In general, there is scope for more systematic PSIA and more effective social safety nets to minimise the costs of crises and adjustment programmes. The evidence so far also suggests that there is room for improving the role of global food aid as an international safety net. Global food aid is well-targeted, but the size and timing of disbursements have not been appropriate for meeting shortfalls in domestic food supply in recipient countries.

Compensating Government Employees for Price Increase Basis, Trends and Forecasts Poonam Gupta Sanjeev Gupta Does the existing policy of dearness allowance (DA) payments compensate government employees for price increase without introducing distortions in the pay structure? Also, by how much wilt the liability of the govern- ment increase by the turn of the century if present trends in DA payments are maintained? In this paper, the recommendations made by various pay commissions and other bodies on DA since its inception are summarised to bring out the underlying rationale. This is followed by a discussion of the present trends in DA payments. Subsequently, forecast of such payments by the Union government as well as different state governments upto the year 2000 are made. Conclusions are drawn in the last section.

Estimates of Unreported Economy in India Poonam Gupta Sanjeev Gupta WE had in our paper [Gupta and Gupta, (1982)] presented estimates of the unofficial economy in India on a yearly basis for the period 1967 to 1978. For this purpose, we employed a technique suggested by Feigc [1979], that has been used to determine the size of the unreported economy in many developed countries including USA and Canada. The results had shown that the unreported activity as a proportion of official GNP has grown from 9.5 per cent in 1967 to nearly 49 per cent by 1978. In his comment, Sandesara [1982] argues that our estimates are on the high side. The purpose of this reply is to show that the theoretical basis of Sandesara's criticism is weak and his methodology inappropriate. Further, his analysis indicates a lack of understanding of the functioning of the unofficial economy. In the next section, we briefly summarise Sande- sara's analysis mainly to highlight its shortcomings. The last section gives the estimates of total economic activity (consisting of both official and unofficial) in India prepared by other researchers which point to the . fact that our estimates of unofficial economy are by no means over estimates.