Utsav Mitra

Student of investing, history and political economy. Now a dad too.

[Harsh Gupta Madhusudan @harshmadhusudan]

To understand significant parts of the Long India thesis, some key works you may want to study:

1. Adam Smith: Division of labour is determined by the extent of the market - India has the biggest latent extent/scale in the world. As a corollary, one can ready Kremer's under-appreciated 1993 paper on scale. Of course, the scale has to be knitted together which is what Modinomics has accelerated.

2. Karl Polanyi: Double movement of markets and welfare state - Indian democracy is doubling down on a safety net while making it efficient. This enables Schumpeter's creative destruction and Hayek's catallaxy. Without exit, there is no entry. The key is to lubricate change not to stop it.

3. Albert Hirschman: Structure of trade is linked to national power; it cannot be divorced from it. Follows Hamilton, List and followed by Ha Joon Chang etc - India started removing taboo on industrial policy around 2017, before it became mainstream.

4. Ibn Khaldun: Asabiyyah is key for the rise of any civilisation. Solidarity, coherence, organisation (I call it Dharma Sangathan.) Need mix of fraternity, diversity, unity to ground pluralism at scale - nobody does this better, from Vedas to having a larger population than America and China combined by mid-century.

5. Gerschenkron: the advantages of backwardness. Late-developing countries skip obsolete technology and institutional arrangements - India did this with landlines, debit cards and even earlier with partial franchise and economic frameworks. Learn from others' mistakes to accelerate convergence.

6. Kuznets: the U-curve dynamics - India has many U-curves or inverted U-curves playing out, which along with the global cycle, position us particularly well over a short to medium term over and above a structural-secular basis. Female labour force participation, pollution in our cities, the relative price levels of India, I would argue even religiosity of the proselytising variety.

7. McCloskey: bourgeois virtue/dignity/equality. In a modern and mobile society, peace is key. To sustain and drive that, the commercial sector necessarily takes a larger stage compared to feudal times. From Japan to the Anglo countries, this transition has happened everywhere which has seen prosperity. India is unabashedly in this phase, though still early.

8. Rostow/Lewis: The takeoff framing and the turning point conceptualisation. Beyond a point, the cycles become virtuous. Agglomeration kicks in, the snowball lollapalooza dynamic takes over. As disguised unemployment decreases in coming years, wages catch up faster for a while. Different stages of growth build on each other - political economy can tax/regulate/allow what it could not earlier. It maybe two steps forward and one step back, but India is definitely reaching there.

[Prof. Shamika Ravi @ShamikaRavi]

Poverty rate amongst adult females in India:
2011-12 (at $1.9 per day): 25%
2022-23 (at $2.15 per day): 0.8%

India has witnessed a massive revolution at the grassroots level, especially for women. #KnowIndia

[Prof. Shamika Ravi @ShamikaRavi]

Read full article:

[Prof. Shamika Ravi @ShamikaRavi]

Beyond the national level numbers, it is important to appreciate the universal nature of poverty eradication across India. This is how it looks across NSS regions (clusters of districts within states) for Rangarajan Poverty Line. This is unprecedented!

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

@miless_15 They’re 37-38 years old on average. They’re super focused on health via clean diet and consistent workouts (strength, cardio, flexibility), apart from insatiable hunger to succeed. I’m their biggest fan.

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

Enjoyed speaking to students at my alma mater recently. Always impressed with how much smarter and better prepared the next gen is…

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

2) Four things will drive investor $ and market cap creation:
a. Founder quality + corporate governance
b. Attractive unit economics / high ROICs at steady state
c. Long runway of compounding (i.e. TAM + industry structure)
d. Robust, sustainable / defensible competitive moats

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

Was part of a great panel at @TiEDelhi today. I said two things:

1) India will see $750 billion - $1 trillion incremental tech/internet market cap creation over the next 10 years (current: $100 bn). China already has $2.5-$3.0 trillion. Can we do 1/3-1/4 of that in the next 10Y?

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

@smitabarooah @ARanganathan72 Absolutely hilarious :-)

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

I wrote a tribute to my role model, Shri Arun Jaitley ji.

https://t.co/vFDukg3bfy

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

@NupurSharmaBJP Exact same feelings. Deep personal loss for all of us :-(

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

While he is well known for his brilliant legal acumen, sagacity, poise, erudition, wit and wisdom, what is less well known is how deeply he invested in mentoring the next generation (legal, political, business, academic) and how generous he was with his time.

[Utsav Mitra @UtsavMitra]

This is a deep personal loss not just for me but for everyone who’s had the good fortune of working closely and learning from Arun ji. I have no words. Om Shanti 🙏

[ANI @ANI]

Delhi: Former Union Minister and Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley passes away at AIIMS