When dealing with the daily news, the important but non-savel news of the leftover. The approach here is our problem. In addition to being separated from tariffs and other similar issues, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, had declared: “Look at India. It is dirty. The air is dirty.” It is not clear that I was talking about clean air or cleaning in general.
The statement hurts, but it cannot be denied that the country is, with some exceptions, not clean. It is true that people maintain their own clean homes and workplaces, but in other places public authorities need to act together.
The Government launched the Swachh Bharat mission in 2014 and has been quite successful in the substantial reduction of open defecation. But, in general, cleaning remains a serious problem. Family history is simply to spend more public money and improve the state capacity to maintain cleanliness. However, the broader story is surprisingly very different.
Without vs virtua boods
We wander a little, for pedagogical reasons. Consider the assets of sin such as liquors, cigarettes, etc. These can be harmful and, therefore, the government tries to discourage its consumption. But a prohibition is usual not advisable because there is, among other things, the fall of an industry and even a drop in added employment and GDP.
Now consider the opposite, which is to encourage what is good. This leads us to the main problem here: cleaning. Let’s classify as a good virtue: the opposite of a good sin.
Speaking more on virtue products such as cleaning is the opposite at less expense or without spending on sin products such as liquor, with a difference.
A prohibition of sin goods can reduce aggregate production and employment quickly, while an impulse to some virtue goods can function relatively slowly. Leaving this qualification aside, in fact, there is a similarity between the two cases. It is only that it is a drop in aggregate production and employment in one case and an increase in the other case.
Now the policy formulators are common reluctant to prohibit sin goods. Then they should be in promotion goods! Maintaining cleaning is a virtue in itself. But it has the additional economic benefits. And, no, it is not just the standard effect of a better cleaning on health, tourism, etc., which can, in turn, increase GDP in the future. It is a very different story here. There is a more direct effect. How exactly?
Consider, to begin, the simplified case in which only the inputs required to maintain cleaning are planning, supervision and labor.
In other words, only labor is required. In this case, people will pay more for cleaning, and reduce their expenses to a large extent in each of the many goods and services in the economy. So far it is a story of realization.
Impact on the economy
But now some unemployed people will get work and soon spend their income and demand several goods and services in one way or another.
The demand for newly used people compensates for the initial fall in demand due to the requirement to pay more for the production of what can be called, the cleaning industry. This industry can be expanded bigger.
Therefore, production and employment are somewhat maintained, and are possible additional works and results.
The additional output is not in the form of goods but in the form of cleaning services.
Then consider the most realistic case in which it is necessary to spend not only on salaries but also on materials, containers, equipment, etc. In this case, employment creation is relatively lower.
Consequently, the demand due to additional income from newly used people constitutes only part of the lost demand after people must pay a little more for cleaning.
However, material spending, etc., achieves the drop in the initial aggregate demand in the economy. It is true that there may be, in the adjustment process, some temporary imbalances between the demand and the supply of varosit things, and there may be changes in relative prices. All this can reduce the additional output compared to the simplest case in which only labor is required.
However, fortuitously, the cleaning industry can be, at least in the context of India, a relatively simple industry and, therefore, the adjustment is not very difficult to be very difficult. There is a tendency to associate an external impulse for production and employment with, for example, monetary stimulus of the Central Bank.
But there is no such stimulus here. In this case, people pay some additional local taxes or charges and, therefore, find a habitual consumption, which is the form of what is needed in the cleaning industry. It is this that is missing in the case of additional spending through a monetary stimulus. So, the policy here is, in general, not inflationary, which is unlikely if Stead “too much money pursues very few goods.”
There is an interesting question. If we can increase production and employment in the cleaning industry, why stop there? Why not expand more generally? The cause for which people must sacrifice some existing consumption must be widely acceptable. And, additional taxes/taxes must be small.
Finally, the adjustment process should not be very difficult. These criteria are more or less with the impulse of the cleaning industry. So, there is a plausible viability here. But we must be careful when expanding other industries through the proposed policy. To conclude, it is a basic cleaning of high -time caress becomes a priority, especially when there is, in fact, an opportunity here.
We can increase a little more, and no lower, growth in aggregate GDP and employment.
The writer is an independent economist. He taught at Ashoka University, Isi (Delhi) and Jnu
Posted on April 16, 2025