Thread by @spignal

INDIA CHART AND DATA EXTRAVAGANZA THREAD. I collated tons of data from various sources for my India's Missing Middle Class package (links below). Not all of it was referred to or useful, some is contradictory. Here are 34 good ones.

(btw here are the articles, which you should check out)
- Leader economist.com/news/leaders/2…
- Briefing economist.com/news/briefing/…

This is top share of income of the top 1% since 1922. Source: Piketty and Chancel wid.world/document/chanc…. And look in second chart how the rest fared: The 300m or so Indians above the median but below richest 10% have been left behind.

India has been good at getting people out of absolutely poverty and to "low income" - (but unlike other countries, notably China, few people graduated from low income to middle income). Great Pew study pewglobal.org/2015/07/08/a-g…

India has diminishing farm sizes, which make increasing productivity in agriculture difficult. As far as companies go, it has lots of small ones but too few big ones. From great "Can India Grow" pamphlet put out by @carnegieIndia. carnegieendowment.org/files/CEIP_Can….

Two Piketty/Chancel tables. From 1980-2014, top 10% richest Indians "captured" 66% of all new income (roughly evenly split between 1% and next 9%). As a result, those outside top 10% barely doubled their income in 3+ decades; while richest few got 10x richer.

Check out the marginal tax rates in India post-independence. Peaks at 97.5%, now steady in past 20 years

Some old data here but still. India has among largest gaps between educational attainment of richest vs poorest student. Figure today would be much improved in terms of years in school, but perhaps not if outcomes were measured (e.g. literacy) Source: IMF imf.org/external/pubs/…

From same paper, India's share of informal employment is higher than other emerging markets. Not surprisingly, this has an impact on productivity (chart 2). India has a huge demographic dividend coming its way. But what will 234m new working-age Indians do?

About half of all routine household spending in India is food. Also note that as Indians get richer, they spend a higher percentage of income on education. From Mint using ICE 360 data livemint.com/Consumer/O0I6M…

The percentage of wealth held by middle class adults has fallen in India, from a low base. This also happened in other countries. But in India, it is largely because those *above* the middle class (with over $370k+ in assets) did so well. From Credit Suisse 2015 wealth report

Retail credit has grown rapidly in recent years, though remains low by EM standards. But Indian savings are at an 18-year low, notes Ambit.

India has just 5 sq metres of formal retail per 1000 people. China has 39, Turkey 113, America 2000. (From Credit Suisse note). That means Philippines has more retail space than India

Few Indians are part of the global middle class in terms of income, but many consider themselves middle class nonetheless - 49%.

Data from @MilanV + Devesh Kapur/CASI via Scroll. scroll.in/article/740011…

Indian GDP per capita at market rates compared to other big emerging markets. India is akin to China in 2000, says HSBC (but growth trajectories may differ). Our chart on the right:

Female participation rate in the labour force has declined rapidly. Some think that as households get richer, they have used money to keep women at home. International comparisons are worrying (charts: HSBC/BofA)

Looking at sample of large BSE companies, there is a clear decline in the rate of job creation in organised private sector, and public sector is flat. Wage growth is negligible. Both from CLSA

Indians are eating fewer calories than 40 years ago, despite being vastly richer. Likely reasons: people eat less as they stop doing manual labour, and fewer calories lost to disease. But such a trend wasn't seen in China. (per FAO via Goldman Sachs)

Also from Goldman, a breakdown of Indian households per socio-economic category. Only about 17m are in categories with average incomes of over $11,000. Their note: goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/p…

Aviation has grown very rapidly in recent years. But at 120m passengers domestically, the whole Indian market is smaller than United Airlines. Another fast-grower is 2-wheelers. But look how their prices have fallen in real terms, as per Credit Suisse. Roughly 40% since 2000.

Indians buy about 60m phones per quarter. But at start of 2017, most were Nokia-syle feature phones, not smartphones. From Mary Meeker at KPCB kpcb.com/internet-trends

India passenger car sales have grew by 20% from 2010 to 2016. That is about the same as global car sales, so India is still about 4% of global car sales. OICA/chart FT

This data is a bit old, but startling. Of electronic basics (AC/cooler/fridge, motorised transport, computer or TV), most Indians own one or less. Fewer than 3% own all. Source as per chart, via Mint

Finally, a last Piketty/Chancel: this is how much you needed in 2014 to be in top 1%/10%/50% of Indians. Someone making 192,000Rs/yr - a driver in Mumbai, say - makes more than 90% of all Indians.

That's all. I don't vouch for this data, and haven't relied on any singly piece for our analysis. But thought it would interest a few of you.