Not for fiscal tightening, says Abhijit Banerjee

MUMBAI: Ahead of the budget, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee Saturday said he would not support “fiscal tightening right now”.“Fiscal deficit has been breached by a huge margin already.In that sense, I do not think that it is a big deal to breach it more. I would not be supporting fiscal tightening right now,” Banerjee said at a press conference here. Reacting to questions about the Centre planning to cut Rs 3,000 crore from the education budget, Banerjee said it would not have much of an impact as education is a state subject. Education outcomes in state-run schools can be better than the private ones, he said as he lauded Delhi government schools for “outperforming” their private peers. “Do I think that you can aspire to doing better in the government system relative to the average private school? Yes. The Delhi public schools have done it actually,” he added.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/35FWIrH