Is Pranab's white paper on black money an exercise in futility? - Hindustan Times
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's white paper on black money is an extensive exercise that, in the end, has delivered little more than a research report. Its biggest expectation has become its weakest link — the lack of a number on the size of the black economy that has turned this paper 

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soulless. We can bicker about the need for such a paper or whether it could have been tabled not last week but next year.

But there is a bigger question we need to ask in these volatile times of fractured political mandates is on outcomes: will any government, today or tomorrow, have the courage to truly end this disease of black money, eating our country's innards since Independence?

The size of India's black economy will come by year-end, Mukherjee has assured us. But I don't think Mukherjee's estimate is going to be strikingly different from estimates of previous serious studies that have pegged the figure between 15% and 50% of GDP. While absolute estimates may differ among economists, one trend common to all studies is the rise — all studies say the percentage of black economy has increased over the years. According to JNU professor Arun  Kumar, it was 2% of GDP in 1955, 7% in 1970, 18% in 1980 and 40% in 1995. So, back-of-the-envelope extrapolations should put the figure at 55% today, though if you look at the real estate boom that has exploded since 2003, a higher figure would not be out of place.