South Asia Economic Focus, Spring 2022

Chapters

 

Chapter 1 | More robust Headwinds through Recovery

As South Asia emerges from the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery has been extremely uneven. Economies in the region deal with current and created-up worries from soaring commodity charges, lingering provide constraints, and money sector vulnerabilities. The war in Ukraine threatens to exacerbate these worries. Going through these headwinds, diligently built financial and fiscal coverage supports are wanted to climate external shocks and maintain recovery. 

 

Chapter 2 | Charting the Training course to a New Standard

GDP has mainly recovered to pre-pandemic degrees: expansion in the location will be 6.6 per cent in 2022, while 1 proportion position lower than the January forecast in large part because of to the consequences of the war in Ukraine. Although South Asia has limited trade and financial back links with Russia and Ukraine, bigger commodity price ranges in international markets are expected to drag down this year’s GDP expansion. The difficulties forward are terribly difficult for South Asian policymakers. The substantial oil price ranges and uncertainty in global oil markets are an incentive to speed up the changeover to a lower-carbon improvement path. These a route will boost energy stability and make growth much more sustainable. The chapter illustrates this by simulating the area-wide macroeconomic impacts of carbon pricing.

 

Chapter 3 | Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Ahead

Social norms can be a crucial impediment to obtaining gender equality. This is nicely-recognised but the channels via which social norms affect gender disparities have not been systematically explored. This chapter reveals that, in South Asia, in spite of a long time of quick financial advancement, mounting schooling, and declining fertility, ladies carry on to confront increased cons in accessing economic prospects than in most of the developing earth. While progress has been made, advancements are slow and increasing profits degrees do not appear to be ample to reduce the stubbornly substantial gender gaps. Deeply rooted social norms, in particular those people about household division of labor, account for a massive share of these gaps in women’s economic engagement. The chapter gives original evidence of the usefulness to determine far more clearly social norms and distinguish them from other elements like attitudes, customs, or morals. The chapter concludes that to adequately tackle gender inequality, guidelines cognizant of social norms, how they transform, and how to tackle their effect will need to be established in area.