Saon Ray

GVCs |Low carbon growth |Trade policy| Financial inclusion|
Author of Global Cooperation & G20 Role of Finance Track &
Global Value Chains & the Missing Links

[Saon Ray @SaonRay]

Thread: 1/8
Our book "A Primer on Electric Vehicles in India: A Machine-Generated Literature Overview" is out. (with Deb Mukherji)
This book tries to answer everything you want to know about electric vehicles in the Indian context.
https://t.co/YE3r34HhDp

[ICRIER @ICRIER]

𝟭 𝗶𝗻 𝟰 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 - 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸

Indian women are becoming wealth creators.

More Indian women are investing than ever before, but how they invest tells a more interesting story than how many.

Two forces are bringing women into the market:

- rising economic empowerment (female literacy up from ~54% to ~75% since 2001; labour force participation nearly doubling from nearly 23% to 40% between 2017-18 and 2025), and

-expanding access (demat accounts held by women increased from 67 lakhs to over 3 crore from 2021 to 2025, accounting for roughly 25% of the total)

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴:

➡️ Bank deposits are shrinking from ~75% (2015) to ~63% (2025), freeing up capital.

➡️ Their capital is moving into market-linked assets: mutual funds jumped from under 2% to over 16%, and stocks from under 2% to over 7%.

➡️ Gold has held steady, reflecting its cultural weight, while tangible real estate has nearly vanished (6% → 1%).

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸-𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀:

➡️ Dependents drive caution: Around 43% married women with dependents invest lower portions (10-29%) of their income, versus 25% of those without dependents who invest over 50% of their income.
➡️ Occupation matters: 33% of self-employed women favour tangible assets like gold and real estate, versus 21% of salaried women.
➡️ Age shapes preferences: Buying/Upgrading a house is a key long-term goal for younger women (aged 25-35), which shifts to retirement planning and medical care as they age.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆'𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱:
✅ Long-term goals cluster around children's education, home ownership, and wealth accumulation together more than half of all stated goals.
✅ These goals anchor the risk-return trade-off: women aren't just chasing returns, they're matching instruments to what they're saving for.

The takeaway: women's entry into markets is driven by access and empowerment but their allocation is driven by disciplined, goal-led risk matching. The rise of women investors may well be one of the most important and underappreciated, stories in India's financial transformation.

[Matthew E. Kahn @mattkahn1966]

An important discussion. Why is financial literacy low? I claim that the human capital model of Becker and Heckman can explain this. When do people choose to invest the time and effort to become savvy investors. (1/2)
https://t.co/e5dKyZfIQb

[Inclusive Productivity Network @incprodmon]

Super interesting!

"How Much Does the World Work?" by Amory Gethin and Emmanuel Saez.

"It is often thought that people in richer countries work less. The reality is more nuanced. Hours worked per adult follow a mild bell-shaped relationship with income per capita. They are lowest in poor and rich countries and highest in middle-income economies. Yet income levels explain only a small fraction of global variations in working hours..."

"...cultural and social choices encoded in public policy shape hours worked much more than pure economic development. The balance between work and leisure is not simply about personal preference. It is a collective negotiation embedded in institutions, labor laws, and social expectations."

https://t.co/hDuXftjwEj

[Richard Baldwin @BaldwinRE]

New Factful Friday is up on LI! 🔗https://t.co/bd3eijVqHD
👉Services exports support four times more American jobs than manufactured exports, yet US policy is mesmerised by manufacturing.
👉Things you can drop on your foot dominate the debate even as the future of trade heads towards services.
▶️Tariffs only operate on things crossing borders physically.
▶️Tariffs can only directly protect jobs tied to making goods.
▶️But those sectors employ only about one in ten middle-class Americans.
💥The other nine out of ten work in service sectors, and for them tariffs are just part of the affordability crisis.
⭐That is the core mismatch. ⭐The romance-vs-reality gap. ⭐The manufacturing mesmerisation.
cc: @AdamPosen, @IMD_Bschool, @cepr_org, @adam_tooze, @jasonfurman, @BrankoMilan, @ChrisGiles_, @ChadBown, @CER_Grant, @jburnmurdoch, @jamescrabtree, @NIESRorg, @ezraklein, @elerianm, @erikbryn, @GitaGopinath, @gabriel_zucman, @Hugodixon, @kaushikcbasu, @k_sonin, @lugaricano, @lugaricano, @lindayueh, @MarkJCarney, @MaxCRoser, @NOIweala, @Nouriel, @NOELreports, @ojblanchard1, @paulkrugman, @politico, @agnesbq1, @DannyQuah, @RBReich, @RayDalio, @SimonEvenett, @simonjhix, @sjwrenlewis, @scottlincicome, @D_A_Irwin, @michaelxpettis

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

This one led by Meghna Goyal explores unequal exchange in global agri-food value chains, showing that agricultural production happens increasingly in the South but food-system income is captured disproportionately in the North. https://t.co/t8MJsy10G5

[Richard Baldwin @BaldwinRE]

My new Factful Friday is up on LI!
The WTO’s problems are chronic, not acute.
The WTO is critical and central to the world trade order even though it can’t produce grand bargains and stopped being the world’s supreme court for trade disputes. Saying it’s in a crisis when its problems are chronic invites ill-willed nations to make quick fixes that may make things worse.
https://t.co/ube7r0uAs2
cc: @AdamPosen, @IMD_Bschool, @cepr_org, @adam_tooze, @jasonfurman, @BrankoMilan, @ChrisGiles_, @ChadBown, @CER_Grant, @jburnmurdoch, @jamescrabtree, @NIESRorg, @ezraklein, @elerianm, @erikbryn, @GitaGopinath, @gabriel_zucman, @Hugodixon, @kaushikcbasu, @k_sonin, @lugaricano, @lugaricano, @lindayueh, @MarkJCarney, @MaxCRoser, @NOIweala, @Nouriel, @NOELreports, @ojblanchard1, @paulkrugman, @politico, @agnesbq1, @DannyQuah, @RBReich, @RayDalio, @SimonEvenett, @simonjhix, @sjwrenlewis, @scottlincicome, @D_A_Irwin, @michaelxpettis

[Shantanu Singh @shansebolo.bsky.social @shansebolo]

FTA and beyond: India has joined Japan, South Korea and China at the WTO to protest a UK proposal that would slash tariff-free steel import quotas from July 1 and increase duties on shipments exceeding the quota to 50%, sources said. https://t.co/jwhY803Dql

[CSE Climate Change and Green Economy @CSE_Climate]

🎙️New Carbon Politics episode drops on May 28

In this episode, CSE's @SehrRaheja speaks with Neha Khanna from @climatepolicy about the high cost of capital for green tech in the Global South and how developing countries can address this issue.

More details in the poster 👇

[menaka doshi @menakadoshi]

India’s Low-Import Economic Diet Is Missing a High-FDI Protein

To quote JP Morgan India's Sajjid Chinoy and team

“The implication is clear: India will need to work systematically and assiduously to re-create these pull factors. Without this, capital flows will be fickle and the external sector vulnerable.”

Read India Edition daily
https://t.co/tHfZ1ZHQPS

[Pramit Bhattacharya @pramit_b]

Will be at Takshashila (Church St) tomorrow evening to discuss Mahalanobis and his statistical legacy:

[Data For India @dataforin]

Indian households use a range of cooking fuels, including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), natural gas (primarily Piped Natural Gas or PNG), firewood, other natural sources (primarily dung cake), and electricity. Some households also report having no cooking arrangement.

The use of LPG as cooking fuel across Indian households has grown steadily over time. In 2000, fewer than 20% of households used LPG, with the majority reliant on firewood. By the late 2010s, the share using LPG had overtaken the share using firewood, and it continues to grow.

As of 2024, six in ten Indian households use LPG as their primary cooking fuel. A third of Indian households still rely on firewood.

Firewood use is concentrated in rural households. In urban areas, more than four in five households now use LPG. The share using natural gas, including PNG, remains small and geographically concentrated.

This data comes from India’s Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, which asks the head of the household about its primary energy source for cooking in the 30 days preceding the survey.

How does LPG usage vary across different regions in India? Read @Rukmini’s analysis to find out: https://t.co/PcWIv6d0n7

#LPG #Fuel #Cooking #India #DataForIndia

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

COLUMN: India and other Asian powers want to copy China's method for producing chemicals and fertilisers from coal. It won’t be easy — or climate friendly.

@Opinion

https://t.co/5DjMOwAQKu

[Richard Baldwin @BaldwinRE]

Energy shocks don’t scale, they snowball. Double the shock and you more than double the inflation pain @voxeu @cepr_org

[Inu Manak @inumanak]

My latest paper, with Helena Kopans-Johnson, looking at the evolution of U.S. industrial policy since 2017. Thank you Petros Mavroidis & Merit Janow for having me present an earlier version last fall. https://t.co/lDaR6B0z24

[VoxEU @voxeu]

Macroeconomics of tariffs with global production and finance networks
Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan @skalemliozcan @Brown_Economics @BrownUniversity, Can Soylu @BrownUniversity, Muhammed A. Yıldırım @kocuniversity
https://t.co/LjD6uRuRrD

[VoxDev @vox_dev]

How does cheap access to foreign technology impact the informal sector?

Last month on VoxDev via @voxlacea, Pamela Bombarda (@UniversiteCergy) & Maria Bas (@SorbonneParis1) discussed how reducing tariffs helped workers move to formal employment in Mexico: https://t.co/6gpp79ahnv

[Jonathan Said @JonathanSaid1]

It's a shame some economists still conflate industrialisation & manufacturing, go from 'informal services *may*...' to 'skeptic of manufacturing', and flippantly through out wider benefits of manufacturing. I agree services have key benefits but so does manufacturing, still!

[Niranjan Rajadhyaksha @CafeEconomics]

Dawn of the Electric World Order: Global shockwaves from the war on Iran are accelerating the energy transition

“What makes this shock different from the 1970s? As analysts at Ember put it: “this is the first energy shock with a superior alternative.”

https://t.co/B7cJsf0E7v

[HAKAN YILMAZKUDAY @yilmazkuday]

"The Geoeconomics of Trade in Critical Raw Materials" is available as a working paper at https://t.co/NS62HiZSes

[NBER @nberpubs]

How the global population living in extreme poverty fell dramatically over the period 1990-2025, the extent to which changes within as opposed to between cohorts contributed to poverty declines, and the key changes in the lives of households as they transitioned out of (and into) poverty, from Vincent J. Armentano, @PaulFNiehaus, and Tom Vogl https://t.co/BIt6eNIDSs