The Economic Survey has debunked former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramaniam’s claim that India’s GDP growth rate has been overstated by about 2.5 per cent due to changes in data sources and methodology for estimation.

After examining the evidence, leveraging existing academic literature and econometric methods, it says there is no lack of any concrete evidence in favour of a mis-estimated Indian GDP.

It came to this conclusion using models to study whether India’s GDP growth is higher than it would have been had its estimation methodology not been revised in 2011. “If the evidence of a mis-estimation is credible and robust, a radical upheaval of the estimation methodology should follow,” said the Survey while adding that given the cost of such a massive undertaking, it is important to be certain that there is a need to revisit the estimation methodology.

Several advanced economies such as the UK, Germany and Singapore turn out to have their GDPs mis-estimated when the econometric model is incompletely specified, thus hinting that the conclusions of the contrarian economists might be based on an analysis that was not exhaustive.